t 



THE 



TEMpLE OF Tp R0$Y Cl(0$. 



ftfl* Souf; 



ITS POWERS, MIGRATIONS, AND TRANSMIGRATIONS. 



SECOND EDITION. 



Revised and Enlarged. 



By F. B. DOWD, 



HEMPSTEAD, TEXAS. 




SFP 101888 . r 



" For these things that appear delight us. but make the thing's that ar^pear 
hard to believe ; or the things that appear nob are hard to believe." 

—Hermes 



/£ 



1888. 
ROSY CROSS PUBLISHING CO. 

SAN FRANCISCO, CAL. 



\ 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1SS2, by 

F. B. DOWD, Texas, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

Right of Translation Reserved. 



'?£$>\CCAmen-r CoOu 



SAN FRANCISCO: 
PRESS OF DEMPSTER BROS: 
1333. 



CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTION. 

PAGE. 



The Supernatural . 



CHAPTER I. 

Principles of Nature 20 

CHAPTER II. 
Life 28 

CHAPTER III. 
The Unnatural 33 

CHAPTER IV. 
Body and Spirit .... 39 

CHAPTER V. 
Mind 49 

CHAPTER VI. ■ 
Divine Mind and Body \ . 61 

CHAPTER VII. 

G ENERATION OF MlND 70 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Attributes of Mind — Belief and Hope 79 

CHAPTER IX. 

Knowledge — (Attributes of Mind — Continued) 90 

CHAPTER X. 
Eaith and Knowledge 103 

CHAPTER XL 
The Soul 113 



CHAPTER XII. 
Migration .\m> Transmigration 127 

CHAPTEB XIII. 

I'm: Wn.i , 140 

CHAPTER XIV. 
The Voluntary and Involuntary Powers 159 

CHAPTER XV. 
Will-Culture 165 

CHAPTER XVI. 

S< >UL-PoWERS AND SPIRITUAL GrIFTS 194 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Spirituality 215 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
• • Rosicrucije" 226 



DEDICATION. 



To John Heaney, of Buckley, Iroquois County, 

Illinois — him of the great soul, lofty mind, and 

loving heart — " Door of the Temple of the Rosy 

Cross " — are these pages most respectfully and 

lovingly dedicated, by 

The Author. 



PREFACE. 



To provoke thought, and thus lift the world out of the rut into 
which it has fallen, the following pages have been written. The soul 
is no common or vulgar thing; and all approximation thereto, in 
thought, must be transcendental. This work claims to contain the 
fundamental principles of all religion* — the philosophy of manhood, 
and the road leading to a true life and immortality, here, on this 
poor, much abused earth. " This is a matter-of-fact age," and " the 
day of miracles has passed. " That is. those things which unaccountably 
happen, which were formerly ascribed to God, have come a little 
nearer home, and are now ascribed to nature. What satisfaction 
there is in a name, especially to children! The superstition of the past, 
and of the stars, narrowed down to that of " the ape" and " the mud!' 
Instead of the facts of observation, I have attempted those of logic 
and common sense. Darwin and Huxley have narrowed the mind 
down to a contemplation of the mud (" protoplasm" ) but I call you to 
a contemplation of man and his possibilities. / came, and found this 
beautiful earth fanned by the breath of deadly poison, which men, in 
the very agony of breathing, call life. / go ; but in going, I would 
leave it a little purer for having been here. I am satisfied that man 
is the architect of* himself, and of all conditions, from " protoplasm" 
up; and it has been my effort to stir him upward to the creation of 
things worthy of himself. This year, 1881, is the close of an epoch in 
the world's history. It will, indeed, be sad, if we follow in the bloody 
track of our forefathers downward. We have now an opportunity, 
next year, of cutting loose the shackles that chain us to the corpse of 
the past. Shall we make the attempt? Reader, study these pages; 
the great ideas are merely shadowed, and are left crude and bare of 
detail, for you to clothe as your mind shall open to the grasping. Do 
not deny what I have written, without a full and clear comprehension of 
the ideas. 

It is not claimed that this work is wholly Rosicrucian. The sublime 
principles of this fraternity are not conveyed in this manner; but 
enough is given to enable the thoughtful and earnest searcher after 



truth to get a glimpse o\ the glory hidden, even now. as in the past. 

1; is not the lond Bounding bells of a sabbath morning, nor the roaring 

gans and voices; neither is the high-toned oratory of the officiating 

priest, true worship: neither is it the means, however charming and 
gratifying, which move the infinite to the answering of prayer. 
Remember, " silenee is strength;'' noise confuses. It is "an empty 
sound," which silence comprehends not, or in the comprehension of it, 
- it. The unwavering, persistent, incomprehensible (by us) thought, 
is the sustaining and noiseless moving poAver of the universe; and he 
who hath most of it is the most prayer-answering God, and in and by 
virtue thereof he is the greatest prayer. 

F. B. DOWD. 



INTRODUCTION 



THE SUPEENATUEAL. 

In this matter-of-fact age the existence of God is seriously 
questioned by the greatest thinkers. The reason is 
obviously in the definitions which the religious world — more 
especially the Christian — gives to the term. The very 
nature of reason precludes the idea of the existence of a 
Thing above, separate and apart from the relationship of 
things. Eeason cannot transcend its own source,, That 
which is seen and known as nature — it being an infinitude 
of objects and phenomena — is considered as sufficient. And 
to reason and observation it does seem so. But if we under- 
take an analysis of this thing we call nature, we shall find 
it fully as remarkable and as contradictory as to suppose a 
Supreme Being as its maker. 

The antipathies of things show no one source. There 
seems, even to broad and deep reason, two principles at 
war with each other; equally so to the fool they appear. 
One cannot be the cause of the other — nor can they be 
self-adjusting and regulating. Why? Because to us — 
not even to our reason — no thing is self- existent nor self- 
supporting. Everything in existence is dependent upon 
something else. 

If there is an exception to this, it cannot be a Thing. If 
we pass by things in our thought, and descend to princi- 
ples, they also are dual and antagonistic. 

To suppose Good to be the principle, and evil its mere 
effect, is an absurdity, for one is as real as the other; and 



10 



INTRODUCTION. 



evil is as much the cause of good as good is the cause 
of evil. 

We are so constituted that definitions are a necessity of 
all growth, intellectual as well as physical. All nature is an 
■it to define itself. But what is it that is defining itself 
in this warfare of elements — this clashing of interests ? Is 
it not something hidden away alike from feeling or observa- 
tion and reason? 

The things or principles that clash are patent — we think 
we know them. All are conversant therewith, from the 
1 Dwest worm that crawls, to the loftiest intelligence; whether 
it be named pleasure and pain, or God and the Devil, or 
positive and negative. But that something — which is 
struggling up out of the rock, water, air, and mud, into 
forms of beauty, use and deformity— as if to make itself 
known in multitudinous ways — what of it ? 

Suppose we name it power! It is neither positive nor 
negative — neither good nor evil— but in the definition of 
itself becomes either good or bad, or indifferent. Power 
is that which supports all things, and we can well say it is 
neutral, for in itself there is no duality. But pause a 
moment and think; even power has its antagonist — weak- 
- ! Is there the iveakriess of nothing ? Is power limited 
to things, or even to principles ? 

Again : where can weakness be found save in things ? So 
power and weakness must be an attribute of things ; but 
where they come from is unknown. 

But what is a principled If we can grasp a principle we 
have a foundation upon which to stand. It is as easy to 
define a thing as a principle. A principle is that which is 
self- existent. 

There can be only one thing in existence that is not 
derived from something else. What if it be a formless and 
boundless ocean! having nothing that can bo predicated of 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

things — neither fire nor that other thing that extinguishes 
fire; but perhaps a fire, by the side of which the sun is 
black — or a light the opposite of our daylight, by the side 
of which the night and the day are alike — in which worlds 
float like specks, or as aninialculae in water. 

We call good a principle, when it is only our tuay of 
estimating the phenomena of life. Think you there is any 
good where there is no sense to feel ? So good and evil, being 
only oar estimate, of that which we sense — it is our product 
and must belong to us — and ive are the principle after all. 

We judge by reason of sense. Then may not sense be 
that formless, unchangeable, infinite something that is not 
a thing — that hidden and undefinable fire whose sparks are 
our thoughts, and whose warmth is our life ? A fire, whose 
quenching by the Infinite will gives forms of matter in the 
cooling — to be fanned into a blaze by a breath of his life — 
things all luminous within, darkened outwardly as if by a 
contraction of the sense ? 

May not sense be the Infinite substance of all space ? in 
which thought is as the rolling of worlds — and it, pulsating 
with motions and emotions, whispers and voices that do not 
strike upon our dull senses — so stupid are we. Even our 
atmosphere pulsates as a breath, and the ether vibrates to 
every voice or thought, and the " aching void," far beyond 
all suns, worlds and universes — that void of nothingness 
where God is enthroned as " the over- soul" of all — even 
there the tremblings of thought and feeling meet an answer- 
ing response! 

What do we know after all ? We know this : It is sense 
that is trying to define itself in this contradictory manner 
we call nature. Out of it and into it come so-called princi- 
ples, laws and things — as the breath going out and coming 
in. It is the actor, the cause, the source of a mighty river 
called life. 



12 [NTRODUOTION. 

There are other senses of which we have never dreamed — 

the unknown is beyond the known. 

How small and weak is the latter compared to the former! 
How small the possible in comparison to the impossible! 
Is the Supernatural the impossible ? Then how great and 
vast it must be! It is natural to grow in knowledge, but 
the things unknown are infinite — they are all in our igno- 
rance. How vast it is compared to our knowledge! Is 
Ignorance the Supernatural ? 

The light that flows from the sun is small compared to 
the limitless darkness that hovers around its radius. Is the 

DARKNESS the SUPERNATURAL ? 

The above is greater than the below. Is it to be wondered 
at that men have universally looked up to God ? However 
vast nature may be there is something still above it, which, 
although incomprehensible, still has an existence to every 
thinking mind. My nature is limited by my knowledge of 
myself and my relationship to others. So nature is a 
limited thing, as my mind is my limit. 

May not this nature, after all, be merely a mental product 
as the good and evil of it is? A mental product! not of 
one, or even of a race, but of all minds in unison! Is all 
nature outside of us, or is it tvithin, as a wondrous mystery 
hidden in our ignorance. 

Is not the impossible within us, the same as weakness, 
and ignorance, and darkness ? 

Education is nothing but the opening of a " door,' 1 or the 
lighting of a lamp in a dark place, through which things 
before unknown appear to us as the possible, and are very 
simple. 

The circumstances of our lives are all within us, as the 
possibilities of our natures, but hidden from us in our 
ignorance, till our acts flow out as a light, showing us 



INTRODUCTION. 1 3 

merely a few things of the many still lying back in the 
infinite darkness of the unexplored beyond. 

The hidden is infinite. We are hidden from ourselves, 
and know not the wondrous powers lying back of our 
smallness. 

Even we are astonished at the wondrous skill of this 
thing we call man, which is but the supernatural revealing 
itself to us. It is very close to us — possibly it may be us ! 
hidden from us, as all things are hidden from the infant's 
closed eyes. 

I feel so, at least at times, when I forget the narrow 
limits of this life, and it is my effort herein to show what 
acts are the greatest lights in this infinite darkness of 
ignorance, so that peradventure some one more gifted than 
1, may possibly surprise the Supernatural himself some day 
with the torch, lighted not by man. 

It may be an idle task to search for God, but he has 
given us questioning minds, and every instinct of nature 
prompts us to ask, " Who and what is God?" and I realize 
that the world grows by each apparent or pretended solu- 
tion of it. Possibly God joins himself to us in this way 
from out the shoreless darkness of our own natures. 

The first letters of God's alphabet is nature. They are 
multitudinous — for each object is a letter. Yv'hat is the 
word? " The word of God" is the sense of all these things 
when reduced back from the contradictions of multiplicity 
to one. It then becomes intelligible to sense of a limited 
capacity. For nothing less than infinity can comprehend 
the meaning of all things. But the sense of the finite mind 
is the same as that of the infinite mind. All things are in 
one, and exist in it and of it, but not feom it. 

In this infinite variety of things — this multiplicity of 
objects — this division of the one — the mind goes back in 
search of the first principle, the foundation from which 



1 1 INTRODUCTION. 

they all spring. This infinite principle of power is sense* 
The vast oceans of space pulsate with sense. The worlds, 
suns, stars and objects of space are each and all held 

'ether and kept in place by sense. All things are sus- 
Lded in an ocean of sense. Nay! things are sense — and 

isible, if the darkness would roll from off our souls. 
Sense is the only thing in existence that comprehends 
things. To comprehend is to enclose, or envelop. God 
reveals himself to the sense of things. In fact, he is sense 
itself. 

God exists not as an objective, but as a subjective being — 
not separate and apart from nature, but as the creative 
principle thereof, residing in ail and permeating all that is. 
In this view the supernatural becomes comprehensible. It 
13 the soul of nature and objects: hence God is objectified 
in his works. 

He who looks for God as an object to worship will find 
many on the road to power, but he who looks for God 
within himself will feel the fullness of satisfaction and 
power, which God gives to all who love the good and 
true. 

That which is unchangeable is supernatural and eternal. 
In nature things are mutable. Matter may be divided till 
there is nothing left of it. Analyze a thing, and you have 
nothing left of it save a little dross. Take a chair for 
example. "What is it ? A few pieces of wood put together 
for use. Take it to pieces and the chair vanishes. Burn 
the wood and we have ashes. Melt the ashes and we have 
some other substances to which science gives names. But 
where and what is the chair ? Is it a mere name ? or is it 
a substance? It is an effect — a result of the combination 
of pieces of wood. If it is an effect, where and what is the 
--use? I answer, the chair was first an idea conceived in 
the mind of some man. and came out of the man, and was 



INTRODUCTION. 15 

formed in matter for use. But the real chair is an idea, 
and hence it is as indestructible as man himself. 

The same is true of all things that man makes. They 
come out of man as the light of his intelligence illuminates 
the darkness of his ignorance, wherein infinity exists. 

Nature is matter, motion and space, but the sense of it is 
the supernatural. It interprets itself, as I am feebly try- 
ing to do. Each man must interpret for himself, and his 
interpretation will be himself merely, as the sense of his 
mind illumines the darkness within. 

Space is a vaccuum in which things exist in motion or in 
sense. It is the " over-soul," and comprehends or includes 
all. This is the supernatural. The sense of a thing gives 
it motion, and in motion things gestate, as in a womb, and 
grow, or become materialized. 

At the centre of things there are no things, neither is 
there any motion there. Perfection and stagnation exist 
at the centre. The centre is a vaccuum, and is the soul 

All worlds wheel around centres, and centres are souls, 
and souls are Gods. In God (" The Over- Soul" ) all things 
are possible — in nature, where soul is a centre, the impossi- 
ble exists, because here is ignorance, darkness and 
weakness. 

" He who limits things by his narrow sense is a fool," 
says Hargrave Jennings, one of England's great Rosicru- 
cians; and I say, whoever limits the possible shows his 
weakness and want of comprehension. 

We do not know what exists in nature. We know very 
little, and what little we know is a damage to us, save as it 
shows us our weakness and the power and infinitude of the 
possible. To return to ideas. 

We are as we think: ideas rule and govern all action and 
all growth. Ideas are souls — entities of all being- 
unchangeable and indestructible; they exist in the spirit; 



INTRODUCTION. 

the atmosphere is the spirit of the earth, and in it are the 
souls of vegetation having been evolved from the earth. 
They hover around, and when conditions are favorable they 
descend according to the law of attraction and affinity, and 
spring up in the soil as vegetation. 

Vegetation does not depend altogether upon seeds, it 
springs spontaneously from the earth. To illustrate: when 
a young man, my father burned several coal pits on one 

I during the winter; the next fall, in passing by, I saw 
ral plants, commonly called the Mullen, growing in the 
old coal bed. The Mullen 'plant was unknown in that 
part of the country previously. A man in Northern Iowa 
dug a well over one hundred feet in depth. The great pile 
of clay lay there in the sunlight and darkness, wept o^er 
by dew and rain, scorched in summer and froze in winter, 
till the next year it produced a crop of weeds that were not 
to be found anywhere in all the country round about. 

It is a well known fact to the pioneers of the wilderness 
of northern Pennsylvania (and, I suppose, to other woo 1- 
lands) that on a newly- cleared piece of woodland when the 
soil is killed by burning, "fire-weeds" spring up almost as 
thick as the hair on an animal's back. 

There is such a thing as chemical affinity; and the ear h 
being prepared by heat or in any other manner mak js 
" conditions'' for new or old forms of vegetation to come 
into existence. The earth's atmosphere is all alive wrf h 
i leas — ideas of vegetables, animals and men — all waiti g 
for favorable conditions to enable them to be born ir 3 
existence. 

Ideas are infinite in number and variety, correspond^" j 
to all conditions from mineral up to man. They are 3 
soul -life and volition of matter, and they enter into mat r 
at every point where conditions are favorable. 

A scientist told me the other day that a drop of nit :ic 



INTRODUCTION. 17 

acid applied to a piece of fresh broken granite rock, revealed 
under the microscope numerous living beings similar to 
animalculse found in stagnant water. " This," said he, 
"proves that the solid rock is full of life." But it proves no 
such thing. It simply shows that the union of the acid 
with the rock produced motion there, and wherever there is 
motion there is a magnetic current, and forms having life 
spring into existence — not that they were any more in the 
reck than in the acid, or that of necessity they were in 
either. 

I hold that all forms are ideas materialized, that ideas 
are eternal, but forms are evanescent. The sunlight gives 
color to vegetation; color is an idea, but, although the 
foundation of color may reside in the mineral of plants, yet 
we all know that the sun develops it. 

A child develops in utero, but who does not know that 
the soul comes through the father? Matter is the mother; 
spirit is the father. 

In every atom of matter is a vacuum — else there would 
be no attraction — for matter crowds upon vacuum and 
hence takes form, and vacuum is the womb of matter, into 
which ideas are attracted whenever moved by a magnetic 
current. 

All life and organization are dependent upon this current, 
and this is dependent upon the formation of a magnet, or 
the union of the positive and negative, the acid and alkali, 
the father and mother. As spirit is the father, and as 
ideas (souls) come from the Father, so does spirit baptize 
matter, impregnating it. 'Gtod is a spirit." So the super- 
natural is a spirit, and will beget itself in matter whenever 
conditions are favorable. It is upon exactly the same 
principle as the generation of mosquitoes in stagnant 
water. Low weak forms are generated in low conditions. 

Ideas, being soul, are food for souls. Hence man grows 



s INTRODUCTION. 

in creative and original power through his reception of 
ideas. Ideas take root in the soil of man's mind according 
to its condition, exactly as vegetation springs up in the soil 
of the earth. If the soil be poor the vegetation will be 
inferior. If the mind be low and vulgar, the ideas attracted 
will be inferior; but ideas of whatever grade or kind are 
a creative power. There is a spontaneity of mind as well 
as of earth. That which springs up of itself is generally 
weeds, but the most delicious fruits are produced by effort — 
culture. The higher the culture, the nearer the approxima- 
tion to the supernatural. To show the road thereto is my 
object. 

Look you at the burrowing worm, and at the soaring 
eagle! Step up, slowly, laboriously, from the lowest form, 
step by step, to the highest form of life known on this 
planet — man. Do you stop here ? And because your poor 
sight sees no higher form will you deny its existence ? Do 
you see intelligence graded from the snail to the loftiest 
intellect, and then, by your narrow sense, limit gradation 
or power ? Behold the grass of the fields ! the lilies of the 
valley! Then look aloft, by day or by night, at the won- 
drous manifestation of an intelligent power, and blush in 
shame at your presumption. 

AVe grasp a little knowledge, a little of life, a little of 
spirit by the five senses, but the vital principles of science 
and of human action are only grasped by the loftiest 
reason. This is intuition. Are you a reasonable being, 
and yet limit God by denying him ? If so, your reason is 
of the lowest order; it is destructive; it is not GoD-like and 
creative. Analyze matter in the crucible of thought — 
dissect all forms with the scalpel of reason, and then when 
you are done with your work tell me what you know If 
your work has not inspired you with a love of the unknown 
mystery surrounding and dwelling within all things, you 



INTRODUCTION. 19 

are an egotist. If you cavil at names you are a fool. Are 
you an artist ? Then take your inspirations from one who 
works eternally, and never makes a failure. Are you a 
mechanic ? Go study the suspension bridges the spider 
makes, and the comb of the honey bee, or the mechanism 
of a tree. I need not multiply words. Whatever you are, 
or whatever you aspire to be, the power is waiting for you — 
the patterns are spread out for your study. 

The supernatural is in all, and is subservient to our 
wishes. But it is our work to make conditions — these have 
no limit. There is no interference — you can be just what 
you like to be ; but growth is slow. Why hurry ? Is not 
eternity for us ? It is the hurry and worry of life that 
destroys power. Trouble and vexation destroy health and 
pleasure, and these are all there is of value. 

All things are suggestive, for they are ideas; they call 
us out or ourseivss to revel in the infinite. Is there no 
suggestion that comes to you, kind reader, of the superna- 
tural ? Is there no intuitive feeling that speaks to you of 
immortal undying power ? Do you not, in your better 
moods, long to drink at the fountain of life, pleasure and 
individuality ? If not, I am sorry for you. Ideas give 
fullness of life and pleasure — the greater the idea, the 
greater fullness and power. What idea is greater than the 
supernatural ? 

We talk glibly of the laws of nature, as if they were fixed 
and immutable ; but they are set aside by every habit which 
disgraces the race. Furthermore, modern times are rife 
with accounts of the dead appearing to the living, and of 
the living appearing as the dead: of levitation and the 
moving of substance without a motive power, etc., etc. 
The suspension of any one law of nature proves beyond all 
question that all are subject to the same power, and all may 
be suspended or rendered inoperative. 



CHAPTER I. 

PKINCIPLES OF NATTJKE. 

I believe in definitions ; but all definition is arbitrary. 
To define a thing is a creation. That nature exists is a 
certainty, but when we come to define it we shall find It 
not so simple. "We define things in order that we may 
understand each other. 

We speak of nature as if it was an entity — an individual 
thing. But the fact is, there are myriads of things and 
conditions in nature which are parts thereof. In all this 
diversity, there must be a something the intellect can seize 
upon as a fact upon which to stand while we search in this 
whirl of atoms and worlds for a stationary principle of 
being. To find that, which is common to all, is to find the 
real. If nature is divided into parts, it exists as a whole ; 
every part must have something common to the whole. 

To analyze a part is to analyze the whole, for the same 
laws inhere in an atom, as in a world. An atom exists by 
the same laws that the earth does ; and its modes of action 
are the same. 

The law whereby matter coheres and gathers together, is 
attraction. This is a binding force. But the law that dis- 
solves atoms, and throws them off, is the law of repulsion. 
These two — the positive and the negative — constitute the 
laws of motion. Everything exists by virtue of motion ; 
but there is a point where there is no motion. That point 
is the centre from whence motion takes its rise. . At the 
centre of the earth there is no up nor down, no positive nor 
negative ; it is simply vacant of these things — i. e. all things- 
exist here in solution, as it were — or conditionless. 



PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. 21 

Things differ in nature. Shall we say, then, that nature 
does not exist because there are so many natures ? By no 
means : for there are two laws, acting in all conditions, 
which belong to that real nature which is the substratum. 
They flow out from it as the positive and negative flows 
from a magnet. As there is a neutral point between the 
positive and negative, a point where neither exists, so nature 
is a neutral ground lying between antagonistic forces. 

Nature may be likened unto a magnet, which, in itself, 
moves not, but sends out positive and negative forces. To 
a thing belongs motion and space ; without motion nothing 
could exist. It is motion that fills the void, and prevents 
nothing from asserting its sway. 

Things in motion must have space to move in ; so all 
things are triune in manifestation. 

A thing is composed of the visible and invisible ; one 
visible point is space in which it exists ; another is the thing 
itself ; but the third, or invisible point, is its motion. The 
earth and space surrounding it are visible, but its motions 
are invisible. It stands still, and we are always on the top. 

The soul of nature is motion, or rather, that which pro- 
duces motion. Hence, the third part of things, which is 
the most important part, is invisible. Matter, space and 
sense are the three things which constitute nature. Matter 
needs no definition. Space is known, and is relatively a 
vacuum ; but the sense thereof is known not by visibility. 
The relative proves the absolute, the same as a part proves 
the whole. A relative vacuum proves an absolute vacuum ; 
as relative sense proves an absolute sense. 

Existence is that which is visible, or that which comes 
en raport with visible things. The invisible and the un- 
known are the absolute. The nearer we approach the 
unknown the more we are entering the realm of power, and 
losing our hold on visible and tangible things. 



22 PRINCIPLES OF NATUBli. 

The nature of a thing is its conditions, and these condi- 
tions are only its modes of action. As there are only two 
laws of action — if those laws are followed to their source 
we shall find nature herself totally stagnant and indifferent, 
as at the centre. 

The antagonists of nature are readily distinguished, — the 
male and the female, positive and negative, heat and cold, 
life and death, etc., etc. : wherever we look we find oppo- 
sites ; but the third, and most important part of everything 
is not so easily distinguished, and its existence often denied 
by pretended thinkers Body and mind are readily known, 
or matter and motion ; but the soul, or that which moves 
things is unknown. "We distinguish things by their differ- 
ence, but often fail to take into account that the conditions 
standing between, and incorporated into every atom of 
matter in existence, constitute the important factor of 
existence itself 

It is said that "Like attracts its like ;" that "Birds of a 
feather flock together," etc., etc. But this is a superficial 
view of this great subject. The great underlying principle 
of nature is, that opposites attract each other, and are 
bound together in inflexible chains. Like repels its like; 
but upon a close examination, things are not alike — they 
only resemble each other, and this little resemblance causes 
repulsion. 

The iceak is attracted to the strong. The sun holds the 
earth at arm's length by mere force, while the earth is 
attracted to the sun because it is the sun's child, and is 
growing upon nourishment the sun gives it. The sun is 
full, the earth empty — receptive. 

Atom piles upon atom, iron upon iron, wood fibre 
upon wood fibre, etc., but this is the law of growth, 
and not due to attraction solely, for growth is due 
to motion — attraction, repulsion, revolution. The sun 



PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. 



23 



pours upon our atmosphere a substance or force, of 
the nature of which we are totally ignorant. The near- 
est approach we can make to it is a prism of white light. 
This force produces such pressure upon the atmosphere as 
to cause heat in its passage through it. The first effect of 
this force is to strike a white light : as fire struck from flint 
by a blow, which becomes refracted or broken up in its 
passage through the atmosphere by reason of its resistance, 
thus refracted all the colors we know of are originated. 
This is the first form of matter, the first transmutation of 
spirit — the unknown into the known. But this transmuta- 
tion does not stop here ; light continues to condense upon 
vegetation, mineral, and all things in the processes of 
growth. All matter is but condensed sun light, and in its 
disintegration returns to its source, or at least goes into the 
atmosphere to be again hurled down into forms. Thus it 
may be seen that attraction or gravitation is the secondary 
principle in nature, as the feminine is in human nature ; 
and that evolution is secondary, while involution, repulsion 
or force are primary principles. 

We knew of seven colors, of all of which White is the 
Mother! What is the Father? Black, the Night! tho 
unfathomable, impenetrable darkness of spirit, out of which 
all things come. To illustrate: If it were possible to 
ascend to the outer edge of our atmosphere and gaze aloft? 
what would we behold? Nothing! An impenetrable black 
wall ! Why ? Because the human eye is constructed to see 
in our atmosphere, and not at all adapted to see in the ether 
which scientists teach lies between us and the sun ; — even 
supposing they knew, which they do not. So, from this 
darkness that " broods" over the deeps of creation — from 
out this abyss of spirit that overshadows all worlds, and 
that corresponds to the ignorance that overshadows all 



2 4 TIUNCIPLES OF NATURE. 

minds — tlie iire of light is struck that is the life of all 
things — and is all things. 

As ignorance is darkness, so the night is in us, the cause 
of all our energy and intelligence. Light is a moving, 
creative force ; mind corresponds thereto. But light being 
struck out by the force of darkness, mind must originate 
from the ignorance in ourselves, or from that inertia or 
vacuum which is the centre of things. 

I am aware there is a class of thinkers who claim that 
there is no inertia, and that " nature abhors -a vacuum." 
This may be true, but it is far, very far, from evident. It 
is just as logical to claim that nature is " one vast whole," 
and that it is not made up of parts or conditions. I claim, 
that inertia is a condition in which no motion or life is vis- 
ible, or that is known ; and this is the dividing line between 
the two great contending powers, attraction and repulsion. 
Furthermore, I claim that a vacuum exists in matter — the 
source of its attractive and repulsive power, and that said 
vacuum is foreign to nature, i. e. a prisoner in conditions. 
Its efforts to free itself give rise to motions analogous to 
combustion. This is, indeed, the soul of things. 

That nature is a relentless, unfeeling, remorseless power, 
needs no argument. It moves on, regardless of the waste 
of worlds, or the sacrifice of life or forms. To nature, 
death is the same as birth, and it creates forms to destroy 
them. 

Xature suffers not, neither does she enjoy. Remove sen- 
sation from nature and it is neither good nor evil. The 
earth, water, air, electricity, the sun, moon and stars, with- 
out something to make comparisons, are all indifferently 
good or evil alike. 

There can be no good or evil save to things that suffer 
and enjoy. This indifference corresponds to ignorance, for 



PKINCIPLES OF NATURE. 25 

out of indifferent nature comes all of life, even as knowl- 
edge springs from ignorance. 

Absolutely, nature exists only as sense, in which view we 
are nothing, and matter is nothing ; but we, as relative 
beings, know literally nothing of the absolute. Hence the 
folly of reasoning from an absolute standpoint. 

It is claimed, that evolution is the law of nature. This 
is partly true, for evolution is due to repulsion. Eepulsion 
is the first law of existence, and is the male principle, from 
which sprung the female principle, attraction. (See the 
allegory of Adam's rib.) All motion is circular ; and mat- 
ter thrown from a centre must return in time. There are 
no straight lines in existence. The returning current of a 
magnet is negative, or female. 

Revolution is the law of nature, inasmuch as it includes 
both repulsion and attraction. A circle is symbolic of eter- 
nity. The soul, in its efforts to free itself from conditions, 
projects a magnetic stream from itself, which describes a 
circle in its motion. As magnetism (or, more properly, 
spirit) moves in chaos — that part of the current which is 
negative or female — polarizes or combines matter from 
chaos — and thus peoples space with stars or worlds. The 
negative is the combining current. It is formative. 

The earth upon the same principle evolves spirit from 
itself, i. e., dissolves and throws off matter in a refined 
state, which in its return deposits the germs of vegetation, 
animals or man, upon and in the earth's surface, impreg- 
nating it, and they grow. 

Growth is simply motion or evolution of gross spirit from 
the material form, which constantly becomes more atten- 
uated and refined the further it is projected from the thing 
evolving it. Not an atom of matter is motionless ; it is 
being constantly stirred to its very center by the involution 



26 PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. 

of spirit — or the unknown. Evolution! Indeed! It is not 
half of the truth. 

"What of involution? The earth, an unknown living 
creature, journeying through space, plunging eternally in 
a fathomless abyss, involved alternately in light and 
shadow, bathed in an ocean of influences, of stars and 
suns — is constantly evolving her atmosphere, and 
countless living, animate, conscious forms from herself. 
Apparently! I say apparently, for the fact is the opposite. 
Light is the Father, the earth is the Mother. Things 
descend as well as ascend. A child at birth, and prior thereto 
is involved in circumstances which slowly but most surely 
make the man and the woman. Evolved from the womb, 
but involved in the mother's love, in her influences, and the 
fathomless abyss of a strange and mysterious existence ! 
Surroundings most certainly deposit themselves upon us, 
as the sunlight and the dew does. 

There is revolution in everything. Birth (evolution), 
Growth (Involution), Decay (Revolution), Life {Circular 
Motion), from the unknown — a short journey — back to the 
unknown. Matter in combustion is life, but whence comes 
the light ? 

Like the light from a candle, refined matter is being 
evolved from natter, which radiates round about, and as 
constantly returns, bringing from the unknown something 
of the infinite to combine in forms of beauty and use. 

Transient and fleeting as these forms may be, they each 
and all contain souls struggling for freedom, and the ocean 
from whence they came, the stream of life, flows downward 
and not upward. God is above — but things being less are 
beneath. Causation is hidden in the bosom of mystery and 
the darkness of the impenetrable shadow; but effects follow 
the lights and flow on ever as worlds, suns, stars and human 
bein^. 



PRINCIPLES OF NATURE. 27 

All matter, all life, all forms, and all mind is involved in 
an unfathomable mystery, which enters into existence in the 
light, taking form as matter and thought. If this were not 
so, matter would become less and less by its action ; for 
light is but the consumption of matter. The evolution of 
matter is the involution of God, which increases as light 
increases. 

But oh ! the mystery of the night surrounding us ! Who 
can fathom its depths ? Who can explore infinitude ? Things 
reside in the shadow from which they come stealthily into 
the light for a little time — then steal away into the shadow 
again. Man with his torch gropes his way slowly and with 
cautious steps in the thick darkness, and anon some gro- 
tesque shape comes partially in view — then disappears as if 
the light had dissolved it. The darkness, rendered more 
intense by the presence of light, crowds around before and 
behind ; and upon the confines of light — in the twilight of 
being — the formless takes form, and such as can bear the 
light march in serried columns along with man. 

The light we carry is what we have learned. It enables 
us to see and define that which otherwise were formless. 



CHAPTER II. 

LIFE. 

To define life, is to live : for in our efforts to define a 
thing or principle, we unconsciously become like that which 
we attack. Analysis without definition is destruction. To 
define life is a herculean task. Life is a manifestation of 
something having power to feel which resides in an organ- 
ization. 

All things visible are simply effects of some hidden cause 
— causes are always hidden. The true mode of reasoning 
is from effects towards causes, which, receding as we 
advance, we only approximate. 

Life, as we understand it, is a result of the union of soul 
and spirit. It is impossible to tell what a thing is ; any 
word or name that expresses what we mean is the best we 
can do. The Word of God is the meaning of God ; and the 
word of Life is the significance thereof, which is the object 
of this book. It is the desire of every earnest person to 
know why we are here ; and in order to answer the question, 
it is better to explain modes of action than to multiply 
names. 

I look upon life as matter and spirit in union or in motion 
or sense ; for all motion is the cause of union of atoms. As 
I have said before, motion is the soul or sense of things. 
The laws of motion are the laws of combustion, for they 
are the same. Everything reminds us of the fire out of 
which we came, and to which all things return in the last 
analysis. 



LIFE. 29 

To find a something common to all forms of matter — 
animate and inanimate — is to find that real nature I am 
trying to define ; that will be a fact as real as existence 
itself ; that fact is that which we feel and know. In other 
words, that perception of life which comes through the five 
senses, and not through that higher or intellectual sense. 

By virtue of these five senses the earth appears as an 
undulating plain, with the sun rising, moving over head, 
and setting at night. We are always on the top of the 
earth, and the heavens are above. 

No mode of reasoning can make us feel that we are half 
of the time underneath — or standing out sideways in space. 
That this is owing to our relationship to the earth I freely 
admit, but the knowledge we have gained through the 
exercise of the higher intellect sets aside the basic facts of 
existence, and proves them a delusion of sense. Now which 
is correct ? May not the facts of intellect be a delusion of 
sense, also? There is no absoluteness in man, save his 
existence. 

These same senses cause us to feel pleasure and pain. 
Are they real, or is it a delusion of sense? These senses 
tell us of the up and the down, and the reversal of ourselves 
is death. We instinctively love pleasure, which we call 
good, and elevate it as God. But we dread pain, and avoid 
it as the devil, which is low down and to be kept down, if 
possible. Reason as you will, sail around the globe, explore 
space and measure the stars, and then teach that there is 
no high and no low, no good nor evil, no up nor down ; but 
still common sense remains — as nature remains— a solemn 
protest against the light of the intellect as a guide to those 
deep and fundamental principles of existence ; which to be 
of any value must bring pleasure instead of pain. Human 
reason leads the soul to nothing ; while the universal 
instinct warns man of the evils of pain and death — as if 



30 LIFE. 

: reative genius lias planted in man a something in which 
brute shares — that causes him to dread death, and to 
value life. 

And furthermore an instinct tells him of a nature 
long since forgotten, save in legend ; of the unnatural state 
in which he now lives, or rather suffers, and of a supernat- 
ural state to which he may attain. 

The common sense of atoms teaches them to lie still in 
their places in obedience to attraction, and the same teaches 
them to fly when set free by repulsion. The same laws 
make all things related, and all life one homogeneous 
whole. AYe are relative beings, and as such, logic, to be of 
any use, must be relative also. Common sense corresponds 
t j indifference or to inertia, because it is ignorance. But 
what is the knowledge worth which destroys common sense 
and the naturalness of things? That which destroys 
nature destroys happiness. 

YTho so bold as to assert that the wisdom of man adds to 
his happiness ? 

The first manifestation of nature is law or action, which 
is two-fold, as I have stated. This must be nature, which, 
as a cause, is superior to effects, as an artist is superior to 
his works. Man, as an effect of nature, is inferior ; but 
God, who is the Author of nature, is superior to all. Nature 
cannot be infinite, for it is particled, and is bounded and 
limited as a whole. There can be only one thing in exist- 
ence as an absolute entity. 

The word is superior to the letters composing it, but the 
sense is superior to both. Thoughts are letters of an un- 
known alphabet, nature is the word, God is the sense. That 
which destroys the word takes away the sense. The thought 
of the age is that there is no God ; such is the unnatural- 
ness of man. 

The life-principle is one homogeneous whole ; it cannot 



LIFE. 31 

be particled ; it is the same in worm as in man. The little 
life of one thing is just ' as potent, and as great for that 
thing, as the greater life is for another. If the life of one 
thing is immortal, then all life is. But the life may be 
beaten out of a thing by processes, to be explained here- 
after, so that it, as a thing, has no self-supporting power. 

Everything is dual — "Male and female created he them," 
— darkness and light, ignorance and intelligence, cold and 
heat, evil and good, opposites, antagonists, all go hand in 
hand — inseparable. There is nothing known but has its 
opposite ; and one being given, the other may be found 
close at hand. Furthermore, the third thing, that which 
makes the triangle of imperfection, resides always within 
the two visible parts. 

Two things being placed side by side are said to be in 
contact ; but there is always something between them, which 
prevents them from becoming one, for absolute contact is 
oneness. That which separates things is condition. Distance 
is condition. If all things were in like condition, they 
would fuse and blend so that all form would be lost. This 
third thing — that is not a thing — this something intangible 
and immaterial, I call the soul of things ; for by virtue of 
it things exist and have motion. 

Distance is space, and space is a vacuum. Hence all 
forms have souls, for there is a condition or distance between 
all forms. That which is visible and tangible has its antag- 
onist or opposite. Its antagonist is that which destroys it, 
and not that which sustains it. Indifferent nature is antag- 
onized by life. All life which has volition preys upon and 
sustains itself by that which has no volition. This is very 
evident in herbivorous animals, but not quite so evident in 
the carnivora ; though when we stop to consider that the 
flesh of the sheep is due to vegetation, upon which it lives, 
it becomes evident how the wolf feeds upon vegetation 



3 2 LIFE. 

which lias gone through a chemical change in the form of 
the sheep. After death all things are indifferent. Flesh is 
as indifferent after death as vegetation. Nature, then, being 
visible, has its visible antagonist. The antagonist of nature 
being life, the highest type of life calls for our attention: 
that is, man. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE UNNATURAL. 

What is man ? He is the highest form known, contain- 
ing in himself the greatest quantity of life, the most intel- 
ligence, the greatest will, the most creative power, and the 
only unnatural thing in existence. 

Indifferent nature corresponds to darkness, ignorance J 
weakness, want of power. The ancient philosophers called 
the earth "the egg of the night." Out of darkness all 
things come. Ignorance is the mother of all conditions ; in 
ignorance we begin this life, and struggle towards the light 
of intelligence ; from the miasmatic swamps of ignorance 
come all conditions that we war against. 

A certain form contains a certain amount of life, and 
wherever there is conscious life there is pain and pleasure. 
Life gives pleasure, but its deficiency causes pain. To in- 
crease life is the road to pleasure ; the deficiency of life 
causes the unnatural to appear, viz: pain. 

Indifferent nature is as full of life as it will contain, and 
we have no reason to suppose that there is pain or pleasure, 
therein. But to me nature seems in an ecstacy of growth 
and decay, and that man, by violation of laws, has fallen 
beneath the floor ecstatic, into an ocean of tears, whose 
waves alternately howl with storms of agony, or sing with 
zephyrs of melodious pleasure. 

But the moment consciousness came into existence, 
coupled with will and pow r er to act, having volition and 
freedom of action, that moment commenced the creation of 
conditions altogether different than had previously existed.. 



34 THE UNNATURAL. 

I care not liow slow the process, — it takes ages to produce 
some things. Every worm that burrows in the earth, 
everything that crawls upon its surface, every bird that 
plucks a seed or eats a worm, every animal that crops the 
herbage of the plains, or that devours other animals, up to 
man, who tunnels the earth, plows the ground, or improves 
vegetation, fruits and animals ; he who scans the heavens, 
fathoms and bridges the oceans, and subdues and subjugates 
all other things, these are all creators — creators of con- 
ditions ; conditions wherein there is less of harmony, less 
of fullness of life. 

The action of will is exhaustive, especially its over action, 
which comes from ignorance of the laws of action. In our 
ignorance of the future we get an imaginative idea of some 
great good, to be derived from doing some certain thing. 
Immediately we set about it, and, being led captive by the 
object in view, regardless of heat and cold, hunger or thirst, 
pain or pleasure, we rush along till exhausted. 

Exhaustion is disease. It is unnatueal ! All disease is 
unnatural. It comes from action ! — the action of a Free 
AY ill. That man should be the most unnatural being in 
existence, comes not only from his freedom of action, but 
from his greater range of action, his greater power of 
thought, invention, imagination. 

If nature be considered indifferent, man antagonizes it in 
every particular. He is a being of thought, judgment, 
memory, imagination, craft, love and will. Pride and am- 
bition are his ruling traits. 

Many there be who claim that all things are natural; 
that there is no above or below nature ; that man cannot 
violate or go contrary to nature's laws. The inevitable 
conclusion derived from the foregoing is, that man is a mere 
machine, moving only as he is moved upon ; that there is 
no such thing as volition : no high, no low, no merit or de- 



THE UNNATURAL. 



35 



merit, no good, no evil. Any man with common sense 
knows such conclusions to be false. Why ? Because it is 
contrary to experience, and every- day facts of existence. 
By virtue of our organization, by virtue of the conditions cf 
our very existence, there exists the up and down, the high 
and low, etc., and any conclusions of logic, which set these 
mundane facts aside, are based on false premises. 

What a demon nature or God must be, to hold us 
responsible for the violation of laws, when we have no power 
to help ourselves. But, they assert further, that there is no 
violation of law ; that nature's laws cannot be broken. I 
simply say, Gentlemen, you know better. Do we not suffer 
for the violence we do to ourselves ? Most assuredly. Then 
why does nature, or God, necessity, or fate make us suffer 
for doing that which we cannot help doing ? 

Man is of necessity a law maker, and, in his ignorance, 
cannot conform to nature's laws. To conform to nature 
would be to revolve in an eternal circle ; but man, in 
striving for the new, breaks through the circle of ignorance 
and indifference, and gets hurt in so doing. Thus he be- 
comes diseased by his own act. 

I freely admit that he cannot help violating the law on 
account of ignorance, since his whole being is action, but 
each act or violation is a creation, and is more pleasing to 
man because it is his own. And furthermore, the ignorance 
we complain of is in ourselves, and not in surroundings. 
Thus we compel ourselves to act ; each act creates light, 
and light is the object of our existence. Evil is our teacher. 
It is wisely ordered that we should suffer ; for that increases 
action or light, to which we are responsible, and by which 
all are judged. We are nature, necessity, or fate. 

" Whatever is, is right ! " No, indeed ; the reverse is 
nearer the truth. There is nothing true to its condition ; 
if things were true and right, there would be no need of 



36 THF UNNATURAL. 

improvement, and no possible room for it. There would 
be no foreshadowing of a better state of things: no aspira- 
tions, no longings, no heart-aches, no weariness of soul. 
There is little of right and truth in all things ; just enough 
to give us a taste of the good, and make us dissatisfied with 
our present condition, and spur us on to effort, to better it. 

No man can climb who is at the top of the ladder. Truth 
and right are far, very far, above us, but we get flashes and 
gleams of the glory occasionally, which show us where we 
stand on the ladder. Hideous, weird, fantastic shapes 
glare out of the darkness beneath, but above us is light, 
truth, knowledge, love, glory, harmony. Nature is harmony, 
but the unnatural is discord. 

Man is unnatural because he is less than nature. He 
pretends to love nature, but in reality he despises it. We 
are creatures of art. We are made up mainly of hereditary 
and acquired habits. These have become a second nature, 
which we admire. This second nature I call the unnatural. 
True, nature keeps along with us in our downward course, 
and fights manfully against disease ; restoring us in sleep,, 
and adapting itself to our vices and crimes. 

It is our voluntary powers which ruin us, but it is the 
involuntary which gives us what little health we have. 
When we forget ourselves in sweet sleep, nature asserts 
itself ; and even then the abnormal habits of our daily lives 
prevent her work. There is very little indifferent sleep. 
We are too intense ; the intensity of the day disturbs the 
night. Wg cannot forget that which we love : our daily 
avocations, our graspings, our hoarding up, our over-reach- 
ing of each other : these haunt us in our sleep. Nature 
must play second. Our natural habits we are ashamed of, 
and hide them away as we cover our nakedness. We take 
no lesson even from innocent childhood — glimpses of the 



THE UNNATUKAL. 



37 



kingdom of glory — but our earliest recollections are 
pointings of the finger of shame. 

To be dignified is the glory of civilization. To suppress 
natural laughter, and smile instead, is grand ; to " put the 
best side out," and to conceal the natural ; to pretend to be 
greater, or better than we are ; to think more of our looks, 
walk, manners, clothing, and the wealth we have robbed 
the poor of — this is civilization. To turn away from one 
poorly clad, not deigning an answer to a civil question ; to 
look coldly in the eye of a stranger, without speaking when 
accosted, because you have not been introduced : this is 
dignity ; this is fashionable. To bow down to kings, 
Popes, priests, and the nobility ; to shout and hurrah when 
they show themselves ; to toil to support them in their 
pomp and idleness ; to march in serried columns to deadly 
strife with each other ; to murder each other without 
enmity — this it is to be civilized. 

The earth is drenched with human gore, and her fair 
fields are rich with the bone-dust of humanity. The glory 
of one nation is the destruction of another. What for ? To 
perpetuate the damnable and unnatural idea that some 
men are better than others ; that some were made to rule 
while others were made to serve. Man has made this earth 
one vast pandemonium — a cesspool, out of which come 
malarial vapors and malarial beings, distorted in body, de- 
formed in mind, dwarfed in spirit. 

Look at the diabolical crimes — the fiendish actions of 
men, the wrong and outrage — at the deadly diseases con- 
stantly on the increase in type and malignancy- — and then 
say, if you can, that these things are natural. I cannot. 
Alas ! how we degrade nature or God in the bare idea. Not 
willing to assume the responsibility that nature puts upon 
him, he, ADAM-like, hides behind the fig leaves his naked- 



88 THE UNNATURAL. 

Hess, and ascribes to fate, nature, chance or necessity the 

actions lie is ashamed of. 

" Forced into the world, forced through it, and forced out 
again, " he thinks force will bear the blame, suffer the 
penalty, and take all the responsibility of his actions ; 
while at the same time he is groaning under adversity, and 
suffering from disease resulting from his own acts, which 
he might have avoided with a little knowledge and self- 
control. 

The natural and the unnatural go hand in hand, as mat- 
ter and sense, body and mind, the voluntary and involun- 
tary, ignorance and knowledge — the same as the opposite 
poles of a magnet. 

Matter and mind are the two poles of an invisible mag- 
net. Mind is no more a result of matter than matter is a 
result of mind. They both exist, and are mutually depend- 
ent, not upon each other, but upon the magnet, or sense. In 
the magnet we glimpse the supeenatueal — in the magic 

MIRROR NATURE, INEETIA, INDIEEERENCE, as an IMAGE of the 

real reversed. For the real does not appear on the surface, 
in this whirl of atoms and worlds, and the awful saturnalia 
of human passions ; but far beneath the scum of civiliza- 
tion lies the mirror all fogged, and obscured from all eyes 
save those of the spirit. And even the spirit cannot per- 
ceive the real except as an image or symbol — thrown by 
perpetual motion upon the mirror of the mind. Nature lies 
far beneath this outward show, but God is above and com- 
prehends all. The real nature of man is covered with filthy 
rags — with which he has clothed himself. 



CHAPTER IV. 

BODY AND SPIKIT. 

Man is the ultimate, or fruit of the tree of life. The 
lower orders of animate creatures may be termed the roots, 
trunk, branches, leaves, etc., — but man is the fruit. Some 
say, "he is an epitome of the Universe." This is a mistaken 
idea. Men differ one from another as the lower animals 
differ, or the various orders of vegetables. The apple is a 
species of fruit, but there are many varieties of apples. 
However much men differ in looks, form; manners and dis- 
position, there is one peculiarity noticeable in all, viz: the 
correspondence to the lower orders. We all resemble, more 
or less, some variety of the lower orders ; and the less the 
resemblance the further is the removal therefrom. Some 
have the tiger, lion, vulture, hawk, eagle, sheep, goat, cat, 
lynx, ox, owl, serpent, various kinds of fishes, etc., etc., " ad 
infinitum" predominating. Some by their build and motions 
show that they have just come up out of the water — or, 
possibly, may be going back into it. Man is an epitome of 
the elements he has developed up through. We carry some- 
thing of what we have been along with us, viz : the spirit. 

And some men, having developed up through certain 
elements, are an epitome of those elements, but not of 
others. Elements are infinite ; but power is not based in 
elements, neither can immortality be predicated therein. 

Animals are but vegetables cut loose at the roots ; man 
differs from them only in degree. He has all that they have, 
and a little more, generally, in some directions ; but some 
animals are nearer human than some men. According to 



40 BODY AND SPIRIT. 

Darwin, man lias descended from the ape. According to 
my notion, there is as much logic in saying that the ape is 
a degenerated man. " It is a poor rule that won't work both 
ways." If man ascends he also descends. 

We make distinctions, in our ignorance of principles, 
which, in reality, do not exist. If an animal can develop 
into a man, a man may go down to an animal. Progression 
is no more a law than retrogression. If man ever had a 
beginning, he certainly must have an end, no matter how 
long it may be delayed. If he progress eternally, he cer- 
tainly cannot always remain man. Progress means change, 
growth to better conditions, and conditions change the form 
and nature. If man never had a beginning, he can never 
have an end. But, suppose this idea to be true, and pro- 
gression without retrogression to be the law of being, is it 
not a little strange that man is no higher in the scale of 
being after having been eternally progressing ? Remember, 
the eternity of the past is the same as that of the future. 
"Why is he no greater, if he has always existed and been 
always growing? If he is merely an infant on this earth, 
is it logical to conclude that he will remain the same and 
still keep on growing eternally? 

The distinctions we make between things are merely 
arbitrary. Life is one. Man has no more right to immor- 
tality than the brute. Man, in his pride and egotism, claims 
for himself a special creation and existence after death, but 
denies it to the brute. This is not a logical deduction. Man 
is a name merely that we give to a manifestation of life to 
distinguish it from other manifestations. We make dis- 
tinctions to which we give names, which are very satisfactory 
to most men. Like the Arkansas man, who, when accosted 
by a traveler asking information about his way, instead of 
giving the information desired, cocked his hat over one eye, 
struck an attitude, and asked the traveler, "What mought 



BODY AND SPIRIT. 41 

your name be, sir ?" Names are very satisfactory to child- 
ren, but lie who seeks for principles, cares little for names. 
But in order to convey ideas, and to be understood, and to 
distinguish one thing from another, names are important. 

" Man," then, is the name given to the highest type of life 
we are acquainted with on this earth, and the term body is 
applied to the visible part. But the real man is an idea — 
as much so as that represented by any piece of mechanism. 
(See definitions of ideas in previous parts of this work.) 

In order to a more perfect understanding of man and his 
powers, we will divide him into parts ; but the distinctions 
herein made are arbitrary, and do not really exist. Man is 
composed of body, mind, spirit and soul ; or in other words, 
the ego, the thought, and the thing thought of ; or power, 
motion, and the thing moved. But these things are an 
unity. 

There can be only one principle in existence. The mo- 
ment you admit two, one bounds and limits the other. Very 
suggestive of the positive and negative poles of a magnet. 
Laying all speculation aside, we do not know what " infin- 
ity " is, more than we know what man or anything else is. 
If we should, at some time, discover what it is, it would, 
after all, be only another name added to our vocabulary. I 
cannot find a name for " her who is nameless" that third 
thing — the mother of power and weakness, of God and of 
nature. The loftiest thought cannot go beyond the realm 
of things, for thought belongs to things. The most fertile 
imagination cannot find a field that does not exist, in which 
to revel. 

The insane is as real as the sane, although we may not 
think it desirable or healthy. Perhaps there are some who 
love insanity. "Who shall say that the dividing line between 
sanity and insanity is a fiction ? That dividing line — that 
neutral ground, is the body — matter. 



4 2 BODY AND SPIRIT. 

Science is unable to tell us of all the substances that 
compose the human form. There is something which 
escapes the closest analysis, or the most subtile and search- 
ing thought. The scalpel fails to find the spirit ; so science 
fails to find aught but the dross of these bodies. There is 
a something hidden away in matter that holds each atom 
in its place ; aye ! and gives form to all atoms — which is 
master, and yet a prisoner ; lord, but yet a servant. There 
is a something in matter lying latent which is not heat nor 
flame, but which, when let loose, produces heat, flame and 
combustion. 

It is the " Fire"' the ancient Magi worshipped. It is not 
magnetism, nor the astral fluid, neither is it light, nor 
electricity ; for these are but effects of its freedom. There 
is a spark lying dormant in matter, which, when aroused by 
friction, decomposes all forms. If set in motion gently 
and by degrees, it refines matter and causes growth, 
attracting and repelling matter. If struck out by violence, 
it produces conflagrations and destruction. Worlds are 
sustained and destroyed by this spark of fire. It is a useful 
servant to man, but when it gets beyond his control it is a 
cruel and remorseless master. This Fire is the Spirit. 

It is in all things, and is the life thereof. In fact, things 
are but forms of spirit condensed. Life is a liberation of 
spirit. All matter evolves from itself an aura, peculiar to 
its condition. This aura is produced by the gentle motion 
of things, in growth and in death. All atoms are in 
motion, for spirit is ceaselessly active. 

Swedenborg says there is a sphere belonging to and sur- 
rounding all things. It is more perceptible in some things 
than in others. Baron Reichenbach instituted a series of 
experiments with various metals and stones which he sub- 
mitted to sensitive persons in a darkened chamber, and has 
written a work in which he claims the same thing as true, 



BODY AND SPIRIT. 43 

£0 far as tested by him. This aura I term spirit, or a 
result of the action of that hidden fire, which has been 
worshipped in ancient days as God, in honor of which the 
eternal altar- fires were kept burning, and men bowed down 
to the sun and worshipped Him as the most perfect symbol 
of fire, or God. 

All matter is undergoing change, and this change is 
growth, and growth is life, and life is the freeing of fire or 
spirit. All matter is in a state of combustion ; some forms 
slowly, others with great intensity. This combustion may 
not be perceptible to our dull senses, but that only proves 
our blindness. Growth is the throwing off effete matter 
and taking on new. This is exactly the case with violent 
combustion. A burning pile throws off heat, smoke and 
flame, and draws to itself the atmosphere, which, rushing 
in, combines to increase the conflagration. This rushing in 
is but the baptism of matter with fire, which cannot exist 
without. 

The body may be likened to a furnace : it must be fed 
with fuel ; and the atmosphere must meet that fuel in the 
system, or no fire is kindled and no heat generated. The 
lungs are the bellows which fan the fires of life. The 
pores of the body are escape pipes. 

The atmosphere is the aura or spirit of the earth, and all 
things on the earth live by inhaling it. Thus it may be 
seen that the spirit of one thing may support another. 
Spirit absorbs spirit by combination, the same as fire ab- 
sorbs the atmosphere. 

The body may be likened to a horse- shoe magnet, or a 
combination of them. The legs are suggestive of one ; the 
arms of another. AYe are, in fact, a combination of mag- 
netic motors — or, possibly, a galvanic pile. May not our 
food furnish the alkali, the atmosphere the acid, the union 
of which sets free the spirit (fire) of food, causing motion^ 



44 BODY AND SPIEIT. 

heat, combustion, growth and life? May not the liver cor- 
respond to the zinc, and the lungs to the copper plates of 
a battery ? Connected by acids and alkalis in the system, 
a current is evolved, which dissolves and decomposes food 
as fire does wood. The fire thus set free from food becomes 
the aura (spirit) of the organism in which it was set free. 
Thus our spirits are made up in part from that which we 
eat. There can be no combustion without the union of 
matter and atmosphere. That union is the fusion or 
blending of all forms into one, and that one is formless, 
viz, fire or spirit. 

Power resides in the formless. In the imponderables 
there is freedom, and without freedom there is no power 
manifested. To a spirit in bondage there is the darkness 
of matter, but a spirit set free is living light, an immortal 
fire, which consumes matter as the light of a lamp con- 
sumes oil. God is Fire, for " God is a Spirit, and they who 
worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." 

Matter is but fire that is quenched. All it needs is bap- 
tizing with a spark from God, and it begins to burn and 
glow with life as embers in a furnace glow with light. 
There is not an atom in the body that is not vibrating with 
the electric or magnetic fires which animate all things. It 
is, indeed, burning with a lurid and weird intensity truly 
amazing. And we might behold the grand and sublime 
spectacle if it were not for the obtuseness of our dull and 
materialistic senses. If once beheld, we would no longer 
wonder at the vast amount of fuel required daily to support 
this ethereal flame called life. 

The light emitted by these walking furnaces — these 
torches, these living machines — varies in intensity and 
volume, according to the nature and quality of the matter 
in combustion. Some lights are electric, radiating far and 
near ; so it is with some men. Others, again, are small, 



BODY AND SPIRIT. 45 

and emit a soft, mild light. Others, again, give out only a 
spark ; but most bodies are so undeveloped that the fires of 
life smoulder, and emit nothing but a fitful gleam now and 
then, amid vast volumes of smoke. 

This light emitted by all living beings — nay ! by all things 
mundane and supermundane — is the spirit. It is the spirit 
of matter in combustion which constitutes the aura of 
plants, animals and men. The laws of combustion are the 
laws of the universe, and they are the laws of magnetism, — 
action and reaction, attraction and repulsion, an outgoing 
and incoming current — this is all. 

Hang a gold coin on the positive pole of a galvanic 
battery in a solution, and a piece of brass or copper on the 
negative pole in the solution, but not in contact with the 
coin, and the result is, the positive galvanic current dissolves 
the gold and carries it over to the negative, where it is de- 
posited upon the piece of brass. Electro-magnetic physi- 
cians know that they can increase the vital powers of any 
portion of the system by the application of the negative 
electrode thereto ; and that they can reduce the action of 
any part by the application of the positive. 

Thus it is demonstrated that matter is dissolved and car- 
ried from one part of the system to another, where it may^ 
be deposited, or even carried out of the body. Now, we 
know that the female principle is the productive, or the 
principle wherein matter is combined into forms of life, 
and that the masculine is the principle from which such 
life or matter comes in solution, as the gold from the 
positive electrode 

Every human being is a magnet, which evolves a positive 
force from itself, which dissolves and appropriates to the 
body material of various kinds from food, and conveys it to 
renew the decaying tissues, while it also repels and elimi- 
nates that which is devitalized. 



4(3 BODY AND SPIKIT. 

But the negative principle or force is not evolutive, but 
receptive, in which the positive deposits its burden of 
spirit. Thus is the body constantly renewed by a process 
little thought of, viz : that of impregnation and gestation. 
All motion is magnetic ; and this is only another name 
given to the manifestation of fire — combustion. All things 
are in a state of combustion — some gently : this is growth 
and progress ; others with intensity, as a conflagration, in 
which the body is reduced to ashes, and the life of it back 
"to God who gave it." 

If attraction overbalance repulsion there is a slow com- 
bustion, a smouldering of the fire, in which other forms of 
matter appear (charcoal for instance). This is exactly the 
case with nature ; the half- extinguished fires of life pre- 
serve the form for a space of time. But notice the slow 
and certain change of form from infancy to old age, show- 
ing that repulsion is master after all. If repulsion over- 
balance attraction there is a rapid conflagration, and forms 
of matter disappear in smoke, vapor, heat and flame, to 
nothing — "not even to the blue sky." 

It is to attraction that childhood owes its ruby cheeks and 
lips, and its exuberance of life. The immortal fires sparkle 
in its eye, and glow in its soft and rounded flesh through 
which it shines, ere shame has come to crimson the cheek 
and brow with a more lurid light, with a more intense com- 
bustion, in which the forms of youth change rapidly. 

To repulsion we owe the lustreless eye, pallid cheek, the 
grey hairs and wrinkles of age ; aye ! the death of the body 
comes through excess of repulsion. A proper balance is 
marriage, in which more things are generated than has yet 
been dreamed of. 

The aura or spirit obeys the same laws. The positive 
contains the seminal principle, which it deposits, when it 
meets the negative, which immediately returns to the body 



BODY AND SPIRIT. 47 

(the womb) with its new found treasure, with elements of 
spirit that combine in the system with positive elements, 
forming new blood, new tissue, new vigor. 

Violent combustion is destructive to forms of matter, but 
the compounds resulting therefrom are of incalculable value 
to mankind. The ashes of wood are a compound resulting 
from combustion, but how much of its chemical properties 
come from the atmosphere is not known ; nor is it known 
how much came from that invisible fire or spirit which 
resides in a negative state in the air we breathe and 
burn. 

Science, a great thing in the eyes of Professors, but is a 
mere infant as yet. It may be a promising baby, but it 
still needs nursing. The body is condensed aura or spirit, 
which liberated by motion flows around it as light flows 
from a candle, passing out positive and returning negative. 
The condition of the matter (body) in combustion deter- 
mines the brilliancy and power of the light. 

Of the constituent elements of the body, science says 
there are many, and goes on to name them. But, gentle- 
men, with all respect for your knowledge, your analysis and 
tests, your acids and crucibles, I must say I question your 
conclusions. Why ? Because a dead body is not the same 
as " a living one. The moment it is dead it is in another 
condition; the elements are changed and continue to 
change till there is nothing left of them. Analyze a dead 
bone, (you cannot analyze a live one), and you get com- 
pounds to which you give names ; but names prove nothing. 
In your crucible, retort and receiver the spirit of the 
universe is adding itself to your work; in fact, it is doing 
the work itself. You do not know how much of your own 
spirit enters into combination with the elements you are 
manipulating. Then why such a parade of knowledge ? 



4 s BODY AND SPIRIT. 

We don't yet know the first letter of the alphabet of 

science. 

Take a tnb of earth and weigh it; then in it plant a seed 
After a time you will have a tree; remove the tree, and 
again weigh the tub of earth, and see how much less it 
weighs. You will find that the tree is made up almost 
entirely from the atmosphere; which, indeed, is the spirit 
of the earth. Forms are a condensation of the invisible. 

The earth is none the less for having produced inanimate 
and animate things. A mother is not made less by child- 
bearing. The light of a lamp is not lessened by lighting 
other lamps. The human brain is not reduced by giving 
thought and ideas to the world, but its capacity is increased 
thereby. It is said that "man is like a candle: when the 
light goes out he is no more." I do not agree to this. 
Light is an effect of combustion; so is the manifestation 
called life. But light is greater than oil, as spirit is greater 
than matter, or as motives are greater than acts. 



CHAPTER V. 

THE MIND. 

We have many so-called sciences of mind, prominent 
among which is phrenology. This is recognized as a 
science by most thinkers. The brain is recognized as the 
organ of the mind, and mind i3 treated of as an entity — the 
Soul. I regard mind as an effect of organization. It is a 
something the soul has developed to enable it to come in 
contact with, and to handle matter. The idiot has no mind, 
but he has the power to suffer and enjoy. Now, it cannot 
logically be held that sense is mind, or that instinct is 
mind ; infants have no mind, but they have the capacity to 
develop mind. Thus mind is a thing that grows and dies 
Kke a vegetable. Mind is a manifestation of the soul, com- 
posed of various powers or faculties. My mind is a 
machine I have made. It belongs to me, as my body or 
my coat belongs to me. It is my property. I may be 
robbed of it as I may be of my money. True ! When my 
mind is gone I am driven back, as it were, to a condition 
where sense remains, but memory, reason, judgment and 
will are not. 

Mind is to me what the rudder is to a ship. By the use 
of it I sail my frail bark over the stormy seas of this life. 
Without it I am drifting like a piece of drift-wood wherever 
the waves toss me. As a man without property is con- 
sidered nobody, so man without a mind is, in fact, a cipher. 

As sense is the first manifestation of the soul, mind is 
the second, and the body is the third. But to observation 



50 THE MIND. 

the reverse seems to be true, inasmuch as the body seems 
first) mind second, and the soul blank. 

Sense surrounds the soul as the atmosphere surrounds 
the earth, and constitutes a sensorium upon which all 
things are photographed, all sounds vibrated, all thoughts 
and emotions reflected. It is sense which separates things, 
holds each atom and each body in place, and establishes 
the relationship governing. It is the sense of a thing 
which constitutes it a thing. "Without sense things could 
not exist. 

Without feeling there is no contact. Without hearing, 
no sound ; without light, no colors, no beauty, no deformity. 
Sense does all things : it is God. The awakening of 
our dull senses is like unto an egg in incubation. The soul 
is the germ. The sense is the beautiful arrangement and 
adjustment of vital elements hermetically sealed up in a 
shell (body). Without this sealing up, this isolation or in- 
sulation, this partition between us and God, we could not 
exist. These bodies stand guard over our souls to preserve 
indivi duality. They are our preservation from the Infinite. 
The lightnings are chained down, bottled up, suspended in 
liquid form in the egg, as fire quenched by water in wood, 
coal, or storm-cloud. These bodies are important. Their 
quality varies, according to the power contained therein, as 
the shells of eggs vary. They subserve the end of solidi- 
fying the fire into organic life. When that is accomplished 
the shell becomes rotten, and the fully-developed chick 
w r orks its way out, into a new life, or, rather, another stage 
of the same life, for there is only one life — the life of sense 
or of God. 

" Except a man be born again, he cannot see the King- 
dom of God." "The Kingdom of God" is only another 
and higher stage of life, and no man can enter it save 
through the gestation and birth of a Divine Body. 



THE MIND. 51 

Ah. ! the mysteries of being. Thou insignificant egg ! 
Thou holdest in solution the incomprehensible mystery of 
God and eternity ! In thy darkened chambers God is 
waiting ! Thy spherical form speaks of revolution as the 
primal law of all being! " Hermetically sealed" — so 
secure from curious eyes, so full of " the elixir of life," and 
yet so fragile ! Thou art the flame-tip liquified ! Pure, 
beautiful thing ! Containing in thyself infinity, soul, mind, 
body and spirit ! What doth thy hatching signify if it be 
not immortality ? Thy wings speak of flight and liberty, 
thy lungs of inspiration, thine eyes of light, beauty, im- 
mortality and the beholding of it. Thy instinct speaks of 
intuition and all knowing ! Even the hovering of the Hen 
over thee typifies the "brooding" care, and life-giving 
power of the Holy Spirit ! Art thou evolved from the 
" black muck," thou pure, white thing ? Can mud see ? or 
can it make eyes like thine ? Can it think ? or can it evolve 
a thought or a thing capable of thought ? Or, rather, didst 
thou not descend, little chick — as descends the glory of the 
night — from the " mystery of the shadow ?" 

As an egg in incubation receives heat, first in the shell, 
and secondly in the albumen, so do impressions come to the 
mind through the body by contact with the outer world. 
The heat which causes growth of vegetation, animals and 
men comes from without, and it is through pressure, con- 
tact or impressions. Nature is to man what the hen is to 
the egg. Physical contact is required to warm up and in- 
fluence things that have little sense ; but to those who have 
mind, there is a spiritual contact or impact, far more potent 
and far-reaching. 

It is considered that man has five senses : feeling, hear- 
ing, seeing, smelling and tasting. But I claim that there 
are many faculties of the mind, and only one sense. Sense 
is nearest the soul, the mind comes next. Through the 



52 



THE MIND. 



mind the sense receives the fire which quickens the germ in. 
the soul, or the egg. Sense may be said to be feeling. We 
see a lovely flower — we feel pleasure. If it be some horrible 
sight we are pained. We may see it at a distance, but the 
effect is the same. 

We come in contact with that which we see, hear and 
smell, as much as we do by taste or touch. We see sights 
that electrify us. We hear sounds that startle and urge us- 
to action, as much as if we had been struck a blow. We 
come in contact with things and phenomena at a distance 
by sight and hearing, of things nearer by touch and smell- 
ing, but it is all feeling after all. The nerves of taste are 
only a little more acute than those of the hands. W T e smell 
the aroma of a rose, and we know it is near, although it 
may be hidden. We are in contact with the rose, for we 
have received something from it that has made an impres- 
sion upon us. Its spirit has met ours, and entering in, has 
added some fuel to the fire burning within. New combi- 
nations have been formed within us, and the rose has added 
its fire to ours. 

Our spirits glow with a purer light from the contact of 
love and beauty. All things grow by pressure, contact or 
impressions. The impressions we receive in our journey 
through life, from the gentle caress of love to the discord 
and clash of opposing conditions, are but for the reception 
of that Divine fire we worshipped in the past. 

Each object we meet imparts its fire; each experience we- 
have, from the joys of a mother's heart to the despair of the 
hopeless, is from the pressure mother nature gives, as she 
warms and hatches her brood. If we live properly we grow 
stronger and stronger in all that makes the true man, till 
the rotting shell (his body) bursts, and we fly away to 
realms of immortal life. 

Pressure comes by attraction, and this produces growth 



THE MIND. 53 

by the gentle heat generated thereby; but the contact 
which conies by force is from repulsion, and is death by 
conflagration. Fire struck out by force is destructive. By 
attraction we receive what we need, but by force more than 
we need, and often that which is sickening. 

Ask the pale, sickly mothers of the land if this is not 
God's truth! There is a mental or spiritual contact of 
things, whose limit is unknown. It is not possible for us 
to think of a thing, principle or state of being that does 
not exist somewhere, within or without the domain of 
" nature." To think of a thing intensely is to see it in the 
mind; and this sight is clairvoyance. 

To see a thing is to feel it; this is contact, pressure, 
impressions. The pressure upon the brain of a thinker 
shows the power of thought and its contact. The pleasure 
he feels in giving birth to that which he hopes will do the 
world a great good, shows the baptism with fire we read of 
in the Scriptures. 

Thought is the lightning's flash. It penetrates. It is 
the sunlight. It warms and gives color to life. It dwells 
in all things, for all things are suggestive of thought. 
They provoke us to think. If we will not think, they send 
the plague, the famine, and a slow decay. There are some 
rotten eggs in every nest. Thought calls us out from our- 
selves, from our knowledge of our weakness and follies — 
and then we are great. To dwell in thought among the 
stars is to be in contact with the Gods, and to receive from 
them what otherwise we should not have. Thought is a 
stimulant : it intoxicates. To be drunk with thought is to 
provoke mirth, like any drunken man. 

The sun illumines a little space on the earth, but the 
darkness is before and behind, and all around. Like a 
coward it flees away as the sun approaches, and like a 



54 THE MIND. 

coward it follows close behind, as follows the past upon 
the present. 

We cannot stand still: we must move on. The little 
thought we have Hashes out into the darkness before and 
behind. Memory* looks back at the gloom of almost for- 
gotten joys, and from the dim twilight of the past come the 
ghosts of evil deeds. Our weakness and follies appear 
gigantic. They are alive and active, but the little good we 
have done is scarcely perceptible — is feeble, is crowded 
back, like a small boy in a crowd. 

Thought flashes a ray of hope — of prescience; and the 
world follows its light with a deathless trust. For it, they 
tax themselves to build churches and to support an army of 
priests. For this ray of light, this spark of Divine fire, 
they go hungry and in rags, patiently. AYho shall say 
there is not a pressure here, a contact as close as that of 
matter, impressions that move the souls of mankind? 

We gain knowledge, laboriously, in the collection of 
facts; but these facts must be digested by the mind before 
they can be of use. Thought, reason, analysis, are the 
stomach of the mind. Here the fire is extracted from facts, 
as life is from food in the physical stomach. Doubt is 
indigestion. He who digests the facts and phenomena of 
life, and still doubts the immortality of man, has mental 
dyspepsia. He does not get the fire, and consequently his 
spiritual nature lacks warmth. 

He who properly digests the facts of life grows warm and 
tender, and stronger in his trust towards others. He dreams 
of immortality, for its fact is impressed on his mind. In 
his dreams the mind becomes telescopic, and he sees that 
which the doubter scoffs at. But, nevertheless, he grows 
stronger and stronger in his belief. 

Long years ago I became very much interested in clair- 
voyance. I wished to attain the power. I read much and 



THE MIND. 55 

thought more. Sat in " circles," used magnets, insulated 
stools, galvanic bandages; in fact, exhausted all the methods 
within my reach, but with the exception of a few " clouds" 
and " flashes of light," my spiritual sight remained obscured. 
It was late one stormy night in winter, in the little cottage 
on the hill, overlooking "the father of waters," that, after 
having lain on a couch for an hour as usual, with a huge 
magnet in contact with my head, I retired to bed, feeling 
sad and low-spirited. I lay for a time listening to the 
moaning and wailing of the winds, and pondering upon 
the subject which at that time engrossed my entire being. 
All at once I became conscious of a presence in my room. 
It was intensely dark to the natural eye, but I saw clearly 
an old man, tall and majestic, with a lofty brow, deeply 
plowed with thought-lines; mild, gentle expression, long, 
white beard, and hair that fell on his shoulders. He held 
in his hand a brass rim, inclosing a circular glass. He held 
it up and asked me to examine it. I did so and found it a 
mirror. He called my attention to the fact that it not only 
reflected objects, but retained the images impressed there- 
on. " This," said he, " is the human mind, which ordi- 
narily has the power of Reflection and Retention" (memory). 
He then pressed his thumbs upon the glass holding the 
rim with his fingers. It sunk with much difficulty under 
the pressure to the depth of the rim. The glass then 
seemed a shade smaller, but was still inclosed as before by 
a brass rim. I looked in the dish-like mirror, and it 
seemed clouded; and strange, fanciful objects flitted across 
its surface. Again he applied the pressure, and with some 
effort the disk became deeper. Again I looked; the clouds 
had partially disappeared, and dimly seen, deep down in 
the mirror, as if in the far distance, a lurid light sent fitful 
gleams across the surface in the mirror. Said he: "The 
mind, like this mirror, has the power of elongation. Like 



56 THE MIND, 

this, the two first sections are very difficult to start; but 
ise accomplished, and the rest come easily." And he 
shoved rim after rim out to the number of seven, and then 
bade me look. I looked, and lo! the wonders of the 
universe were revealed. The light was clearer than the 
brightest I ever saw. The ineffable glory of creative prin- 
ciple Hashed like lightning upon my brain. I could not 
bear the steady flame, and turned my wondering eyes to the 
face of "the stranger." He smiled, and said: " The mind 
has a telescopic power, little known to mortals. When 
once attained, there are no secrets that may not be dis- 
covered." And then he and the "Magic Mirror" were 
gone. But I have not forgotten the lesson. 

In these pages, if you can comprehend the ideas, you 
will find a verification of its truth, and the guide-posts on 
the road to power. We can never know a thing or princi- 
ple except by contact therewith. Ideas grow in the mind 
as vegetation grows in the earth. Thoughts are the letters 
of a word ; the word is part of a sentence. A complete 
sentence or a combination of incomplete sentences, con- 
tains an idea. 

The word is the beginning of speech, or the first material- 
ization of an idea. Hence St. John says, " In the beginning 
was the Word." Now we may think and think till we are 
exhausted, but if we conceive no idea, and think it out to a 
clear and perfect definition, it will do us no good ; it is like 
a plant struck by frost, or withered by drouth. But if, in 
cur analysis of facts, we conceive an idea — no matter how 
vague — and dwell upon it in thought, it gradually takes 
form and grows to maturity. 

Maturity is a perfected idea. When an idea is matured in 
the mind it enters into the soul, and becomes an integral 
part of the thinker, and he is changed thereby. 

We are changed by our thoughts. That which leads us 



THE MIND. 57 

upward towards the good is expansive ; hence, creative of 
power : but that which is debasing leads downward, and is 
contraction, hence destructive to power. The soul expands 
by fire, but contracts for want of it. Fire is power ; and 
weakness is for want of it. It will be seen from the fore- 
going that the mind occupies an important position. 

Everything that reaches the soul must pass through it in 
the form of ideas. For the soul is an idea itself, and 
nothing can enter the soul that is foreign to it. Fire is the 
spirit in which ideas reside. 

If man were natural, there could be no progress, for he 
would be in a state of indifference. But, being unnatural, 
he is progressive and intense — i. e., insane in his mind. 
The real appears to him as unreal, and the unreal as the 
real. From this cause he looks upon the body as the man, 
and the mind as the effect of the body — like "the blaze of 
a candle" — and laughs at the idea of a soul or spirit. This 
state of the mind is termed natural. I call it unnatural. 
But we cannot help being unnatural on account of our 
ignorance. Ignorance always blunders — weakness always 
falls. The first act of the natural was a fall, for he was 
ignorant. When fallen he struggles to stand erect, for he 
has knowledge of an erect posture. The unnatural is pro- 
gressive. 

The mind is not a thing, but rather a law or mode of 
action of the soul. It is a duality — " two in one." The 
natural and rational are the two, which, united in harmony, 
are the Divine One. The Divine is first of all — the sen- 
sorium of the soul, as evidenced by the intuition and inno- 
cence of childhood, and the instinct of animals, etc. From 
it comes all that exists. 

In the creation of man instinct was suspended by a 
reversal, or depolarization of it, in which it was dissolved 
as it were and scattered, and became the seeds of many 



THE MIND. 



faculties. Each and every faculty of the mind has instinct 
as its foundation. This scattering or division of instinct may 
have been, and undoubtedly was, a slow process, occupying 
many ages. 

Man is the only thing that comes into existence totally 
helpless, totally blank of intelligence: hence it must have 
culminated in his creation. 

The tossing waves of instinct, torn from the depths of 
creation's ocean, tossed to mountain heights, and beaten to 
froth, subsided in a great calm! Anon, a breath of the 
Infinite fanned the great deep, and man sprang into being ! 

This calm is a great rest of nature as she gathers her 
forces for another effort: it is the soul as it expands; the 
vacuum that provokes motion. The tornado was coming; 
all nature held its breath in expectancy! It came in the 
shape of mind. Ever since its advent there has been no 
more calm. From sun to sun, from star to star, from pole 
to pole, from centre to circumference, there is agitation. 
Nature seems torn from her moorings. Her steady and 
quiet ways seem broken in upon as by a God. She is all 
turned topsy turvy. And she, good dame, has joined in the 
mad revelry, as at her own nuptials. Nature seems to have 
departed from her usual methods ; an innovation has been 
made, as if the absent Lord had returned, or a god had 
descended! From this point — from this great calm, this 
rest and expansion, this birth — work is the law. The first 
effort was a failure because there was no guide, no knowl- 
edge. A failure ! Such a thing was unknown to nature. 
Astonished and bewildered, the soul shrinks and collapses 
in giving the awful thing birth ! A failure ! If being forced 
back from multiplicity to unity — if being compelled in n 
new creation to go back to the starting point — indifferent 
sense — to work outward again to multiplicity — if this be a 
failure, then man is a failure. And every man who weeps 



THE MIND. 59 

over the weaknesses, follies and sufferings of poor benighted 
humanity, recognizes it as such. Every man who has an 
idea of improving the race knows there is something 
wrong. 

But nature, like an over-indulgent mother, says to her 
child: "It is no failure, my child; try again." And sink- 
ing herself in her great love for him, becomes the involun- 
tary powers of her child. For her spoiled child she bears 
patiently every abuse. She breathes for him while he 
sleeps. She labors as he directs ; while he, visionary that 
he is, is busy building castles in the air. She walks, if he 
says walk; he takes no thought of the distance or the steps: 
all he has to do is to direct her. If he fails to point the 
way, through forgetfulness, she goes astray, for she seems 
to be blind ; but she keeps on walking till he says stop. If, 
in his perversity, he takes up some habit that will eventually 
ruin him, she adapts herself to his whim, and carries it on 
without his volition, even to his death ; when he forgets it, 
she reminds him of it. In his sleep she still labors for him 
to restore the waste of his unnatural life ; still whispering, 
" Try again." 

If he hates, she keeps it in his mind. If he resolves to 
commit some crime, she assists him as readily as to do a 
good act, always whispering, " Try again." 

If an incurable disease attacks her child, she fights for 
him while he directs, and in the manner that he directs, 
but when he loses control she joins forces with the adversary 
to hurry on the work of dissolution. Even in death she 
reminds him of his habits. Nature seems to be a blind 
force, an indifferent thing, if it be a thing. She knows 
nothing, feels nothing; she simply furnishes us with the 
power to think and feel, whispering, " Try again!" 

It is no fiction, — the fall of man, — but it is an allegorical 
representation of a truth: or, in other words, the effort of a 



60 



THE MIND. 



great mind to explain the life we live — the principles of 
being. The acts we do, furnish the light of experience. 
The man who trusts in himself and walks out boldly gains 
the most. He who trnsts in God, although the happiest, 
gains the least knowledge. If we fall and hurt ourselves, 
we have the freedom to climb up again. And though we 
may not climb back to the same place, we may go higher. 
Ever since the " fall," man has been scaling the precipices 
of his weaknesses and failures. The. point I call your 
attention to is this : All acts have their beginning and incep- 
tion in the mind. Hence all violation of law, with their 
attendant pain, disease, weakness, and death, spring from 
mind. All violation is a creation. Hence all creation is a 

MENTAL PEODUCT. 

As acts flow from the mind, so matter flows from the 
mind; for acts materialized are matter. This being so, the 
more Divine the mind is, the greater will its creative power 
be. The evolution of matter from itself having any quality 
or form, or the dissolving of matter already formed, by the 
suspension of atomic laws, is logical, and within the range 
of man's power, as a Divine Being. As a creator, all 
creation is in his grasp, and he is therefore the architect of 
himself, and his heavens or his hells. The conception of a 
thing is the beginning of its growth. Hell grows out of 
our minds: so also does heaven; but hell is largest. So 
also a Divine body may be grown by conception, gestation 
and birth in the mind. 

Hell is fed by our desires to see our enemies suffer, and 
from a spirit of retaliation and revenge. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 



The natural mind is the common mind. It receives its- 
impressions through the five senses ; or, in other words, 
wholly from external nature. To it belong observation, 
memory and reflection. All things of this mundane sphere 
reflect themselves upon the mind as in a mirror. This mind 
grows and expands by the collection of facts, but the con- 
clusions of it are material as the facts themselves. For this 
reason the natural mind cannot conceive of a spiritual or 
future state of existence ; its utmost powers enable it only 
to reach the plane of knowledge, or the manipulation of 
matter. The knowledge gained by it is the sciences and 
philosophy of material things ; it adapts man to this 
" bread- and-butter" life. Its analysis is destructive ; hence 
to it belongs doubt, skepticism, unbelief, and the impossible ; 
pride, lust, hate, fear, avarice, deceit and invention are its 
controlling powers. The interior of this mind being closed 
up, there is no reflection from any other way than from 
without. The soul is denied, because it cannot be seen or 
handled ; its presence is unfelt, by reason of the hardness 
and opacity of the natural — or, more properly, the unnatu- 
ral mind. It cannot feel from within, but is constantly 
drawn outward by sight, sound and contact. It is the " wide- 
awake" mind. Its highest faculty is the invention of 
machinery, building of railways, cities, etc. — all of a mate- 
rial character. But it is progressive, inasmuch as it expands. 



62 DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 

by its stretch after tlie new, and its effort to perfect that 
which it conceives. 

Conception is always superior to the production. The 
true artist fails to come up to his ideal, because the colors 
in his mind are pure, while the colors of his picture, being 
a compound of matter, are dead. It is a mere material 
thing, void of soul. If he could, by looking at the canvass, 
project from his mind the picture he sees in his mind, pro- 
ject the colors from himself — without brush, paints or 
pencils — on the canvas, it would come up to his ideal. This 
power does not belong to the natural nor to the rational, 
but to the Divine Mind. 

The Divine mind does not exist to the natural mind, 
because it cannot come in contact therewith. The natural 
develops into the rational, which expands to the Divine. 
The natural, by expansion, opens the interiors, through 
which impressions come from the unknown. If these im- 
pressions are not rejected the mind becomes luminous. This 
illumination is rationality. Impressions from within awaken 
the mind as with a new life, and it gradually turns within— 
thus reversing itself. This is the beginning of magnetiza- 
tion, which is a turning inward of the eyes and the sight — 
the beginning of the glory. 

The natural may be compared to the flint, and objects to 
the steel. The fire struck out is a mere spark, which van- 
ishes away and is lost ; but the rational is a steady flame, 
flowing from the Divine, making malleable and luminous 
the entire man. Seeds deposited in the earth first soften, 
then enlarge, before the germ can come forth. The natural 
mind is the seed planted in the soil of the body, but the 
rational is the tree ; the fruitage is the Divine ; which, 
indeed, grows not out of the ground, but descends, as the 
Spirit, to bless all who partake thereof. This is the bread 



DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 03 

that comes down from Heaven, of which if a man eat he 
shall not die. 

To the rational belongs the innocency of childhood, with 
its simplicity and credulity. Instead of sagacity there is 
intuition ; instead of deduction there are visions and revela- 
tions. One might naturally think that rationality came 
with age ; and so it would, if there was no retrogression. 
Our daily lives cloud the surface of the mind with a film, 
through which the flint scarce penetrates ; hence there is 
no fire evolved by the friction incident to this life. 

"We become insulated during the mad rush for wealth, 
and the magnetism that gives growth and expansion passes 
by us. The real age and life of a man dates from his con- 
scious progress in the good and pure The real death dates 
from the time one becomes conscious of being bad, and 
does not forsake his evil ways. There are some children 
who are older in soul-growth than some old men or women. 
There are some persons who retrograde from earliest child- 
hood ; others progress for some years, then turn down- 
wards ; others, again, are bad in early life, then suddenly, 
or slowly, turn to progress upward. We may pity the old 
person who is hard. Progress softens the mind, and thus 
the whole man expands. 

The Divine mind is first ; next is the rational ; the last 
and outermost is the natural. The natural corresponds to 
matter, the rational to spirit, the Divine to soul. The Divine 
mind is the sensorium of the soul, which surrounds it as a 
translucent film, which expands and contracts. Attraction 
expands it ; repulsion contracts it It is the sensorium that 
is the seat of consciousness ; the events of life are all pho- 
tographed upon it. All the emotions that are experienced 
give color to it. The various strains of music and discord 
leave their impression on it. The voiceless universe affects 
it also. What we have been in previous states of existence 



64 DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 

is brought forward by the sensoriurn. into this life ; and the 
sound of the voice, the build of the body, the facial 
expression, the laugh, the color of the eyes — all these, and 
more, tell what we have been doing, and what we have 
been in the long eternities of the past. 

Upon the inner surface of the sensoriurn ideas exist — 
in the " Holy of Holies," wherein God's voice is heard. Upon 
its outer surface symbols of those ideas are projected, 
which, descending into the rational according to its condi- 
tion, as descends the ovarian egg, there becomes impreg- 
nated by the nature of things. The nature of things is the 
spirit of things, viz : Fire. The spirit dies in the impreg- 
nation, and is born (after gestation) into the natural mind 
reversed — i. e., instead of being spiritual it is material. It 
is a mere reflection of the Divine mind, a reversed image, 
as your face in a mirror. For this reason we get no abso- 
lute truth. Ideas are reversed and distorted from having 
been impregnated by the spirit of what has been. 

In the same manner spirit i3 changed into matter, and 
becomes part and parcel of these bodies. For instance^ 
you have a wound ; the pain is a telegram to the sensoriurn 
of the soul ; the idea to restore, though unconscious to you, 
is immediately projected by the soul into the sensoriurn, or 
Divine mind, where it meets spirit and is impregnated, and, 
descending, deposits life in the form of new matter in the 
wound. Thus are the injured tissues fed, like a child in 
embryo, till the parts are restored. But there is a decay of 
the injured parts before and during restoration. 

How tenderly and carefully we nurse and dress an nicer, 
thus causing it to give way to new and healthy flesh. Mat- 
ter is but spirit reversed. Substance is substantial ; it does 
not change, but spirit and matter do change in becoming 
reversed. The decayed matter of an ulcer is the return to 
spirit, and matter in formation is spirit condensing : which 



DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 65 

is effected by that third and incomprehensible thing — the 
soul. 

These material bodies are but an ulcer, so to speak, upon 
a Divine and substantial body, which the soul is striving to 
free therefrom. But in most of us this Divine part is 
destroyed, swallowed up, eaten through and through as by 
ulceration. The substance of the Divine body is an idea of 
it. Matter, without an idea, falls or lies dormant ; but with 
an idea it rises up and walks erect as man. Aye ! and with 
an idea of it he rises up to be a god. 

Ideas revolve in cycles of time as worlds revolve in space. 
Hence, "there is nothing new under the sun." We get a 
glimpse of the Divine in childhood and in first love. But 
the fog soon — alas ! too soon — rises and obscures the sud. 
In the reversal of ideas the external, or the last, appears to 
be first. Causation appears on the surface of things, and 
life and mind seem as the effect of matter. 

Beligious ideas are of the soul ; its symbols — being pro- 
jections thereof — are reversed images which the world wor- 
ships. The esoteric is lost in the rubbish of the exoteric, 
as the soul is lost in matter. But it flows on in cycles, vast 
in extent, and gradually works out of the rubbish, and asserts 
itself as miracle. The age of miracle is near at hand ! The 
cycle of the soul is nearly completed ! Already we can see 
the first dim twilight of the rising sun ! 

From the worship of the Divine — the one, the first math- 
ematical number — we have gone down to the number nine 
in the absurdity of addition, and now in that constellation 
we worship many gods — our forefathers. But the absurd 
nine will pass away, and the next cycle will be the union of 
the Immortal 1 — symbol of creation and the beginning — 
with (10) symbol of the soul. The Father and the Mother 
at last united, the Son (the Divine mind) will appear on this 



66 DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 

earth. Thus we revolve in a numerical circle froin one back 
to one again. 

The idea of heredity carries us back to our forefathers, 
and we lay the blame of our follies upon them ; but they 
wont back to Adam ; Adam laid the blame on the devil ; 
the devil lays the blame on God, who created and educated 
him for that purpose. Thus in thought man makes God 
out a demon, inferior to the lowest of humanity in sympathy, 
and superior to the devil in cold malignity. What 
absurdity ! 

"Why not accept what we knoiv as the truth ? W^e know 
that our acts make and unmake us, and that w T e suffer and 
enjoy through our own acts. What I am, my acts in this 
life and other stages of existence have made me. I am but 
an action, and every act I do, adds to, or diminishes my 
po wer to create, to enjoy, to suffer, and to be. I am the 
numeral one — the first and the last. 

When, in the progress of life the soul expands to the 
outermost being, and becomes the over-soul instead of the 
inner, then shall the Father (Spirit) be one with the Mother 
(ooulj, and the Divine mind (the Son or sun, symbol of 
Divine light and knowledge,) shall illumine the night of 
matter, and all secrets which lurk in darkness shall stand 
out in their naked deformity. 

" Then shall no one say to his neighbor, know ye the 
Lord, for all shall know him, from the least to the greatest." 
This is the Trinity, and the real significance of the Father, 
Son and Holy Ghost. Spirit, the Father, God ; Soul, the 
Mother, Holy Ghost ; Mind, the only begotten Son of Spirit 
or of God. 

The union of spirit and soul is typified by marriage ; 
creation is typified by children, as the son or mind begotten. 
As an idea reversed or dwarfed becomes monstrous, this 
idea of the Trinity, Divine as a symbol, has been rendered 



DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 67 

unnatural by the loss of its divine intent, and doubly 
damned by the enforcement of unnatural statute laws. 

The natural becomes the rational by development, and 
the same is true of the rational. Many there be who do 
not believe in the Divine. To me Divinity is the noblest 
and best part of humanity — a beacon light, far above us, 
luring us upward and onward to real manhood and God- 
hood. All rationality is negative, but naturalness is positive. 

The spirit flows out and in. As it flows out it dissolves 
and carries away effete or dead matter into the atmosphere, 
when it becomes the life of something else ; this is a posi- 
tive current. As it flows in it brings with it the spirit of 
other things, with which it has mingled in its revolutions 
around the body ; for, like everything in motion, it revolves. 
In this mingling the spirit becomes negative, and returns 
to the body ; so all spirit that builds up the waste of the 
body is negative. 

The negative is feminine, and all formation takes place 
therein. Rationality is the negative mind. All art and 
mechanism is due to rationality. All aggressive acts and 
destruction is due to the positive or natural mind (as I have 
termed it in this chapter for the sake of simplicity). The 
Divine mind is that incomprehensible and out-of-the-way 
mind — that third thing, standing guard between the two, 
wherein they meet and become one. 

Now, this meeting of the spirit with matter, and its 
transformation from spirit into matter, is a strange and 
mysterious thing. The spirit itself is not life, but it con- 
tains the germ which comes to life in the third- thing, which 
contains in itself the power of generation. Mind is the 
connecting link between matter and spirit — hence it is in 
the mind that transformation is effected. 

This mind becomes Divine by unf oldment, which, indeed, 
is nothing more than a union of the natural with the 



88 



DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 



rational. In the way we look at things from without, the 
Divine is evolved, but in reality the Divine contains the 
natural in itself, and is first in the order of creation. There 
is Divinity in all things, as there is life in all. 

T \Ye speak of the mind as a thing, having an organ, the 
brain, and a location therein, but we know of no such thing. 
The mind may, and probably does, come to a focus in the 
brain as a great centre of perception ; but I have good 
grounds to maintain that it occupies every atom of the 
body — even to the toe-nails and hair ; and that it surrounds 
the soul, separating the spirit from it, and that it is the 
great laboratory of the Infinite, in which spirit is trans- 
formed, and matter receives its quickening power, and is 
transfigured, transposed, or rendered up to the Infinite as 
an incorruptible substance. 

Jesus was in possession of the Divine mind. It was not 
possible for Him to be sick, to suffer pain, or to die, save as 
He willed it. He did not die, only in appearance ; neither 
did His body ascend, only in appearance, but was trans- 
posed. This transposition is a vanishing away out of sight. 
Read of the transposition of Philip, in Acts viii, 39-40. 

Andrew Potts, of Harrisburg, Pa., told me — and the samt» 
was corroborated by several truthful men who witnessed it — 
that he vanished out of the sight of his friends at the 
depot, when they were about to take the cars for a town 
six miles down the road, and that when the cars arrived at 
that station he was already there, talking with a friend who 
was waiting for the train to escort the friends to his house, 

Jesus' life and death was to show mankind that he was 
the same as they, and to show them the possibilities of 
human nature. A teacher, to be acceptable, must not be 
too far removed from his pupils. Had Jesus manifested 
the powers of a God, vanished from the cross, etc., He 
would have converted the Jewish nation in a day, and they 



DIVINE MIND AND BODY. 69 

would have worshipped Him as God. But what good would 
that have done ? Lo ! the world has been worshipping Gods 
for countless ages, and some portion has been worshipping 
Jesus ever since His crucifixion, but what good has it done ? 
The Doctrines of Jesus are sublime in their truth and 
simplicity — but very much, of the most value, has never 
been penned. It has been urged against him that he taught 
that which, if practiced, would subvert civilization. On 
the contrary, it would redeem mankind from barbarism and 
idolatry, and make men civilized in place of semi- savage. 
" Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to the 
Father." " By their fruits shall ye know them." " These 
signs shall follow those that believe" Who believes? 



CHAPTER VII. 



GENEEATION OF MIND. 



It is the weakness of matter which compels it to lie dor- 
mant and still in one place; this it is which causes it to fall 
down when not supported. Gravitation is only another name 
for weakness. So it is with mind. That which is under law is 
weak, and the more materialistic the mind is the weaker it 
is, and the more bound by law. 

Mind is law, but the thing moved and governed is 
matter. To fulfill the law, then, is to perfect the mind, and 
the matter under it; for law makes matter, and imparts 
every quality to it — motion, weight, buoyancy, etc. 

To the perfected mind all mundane things are under, or 
inclosed in it, as a large circle incloses smaller ones. There 
is no such thing as perfecting nature — it is already perfect. 
Neither can an imperfect thing generate a perfect thing. 
The imperfect changes by rising up to, and receiving the 
perfect within itself. Thus the wise man works through 
nature, not against it; and mastering its modes, methods, 
laws and minds, transcends them all; and looking back, 
becomes a spectator rather than an actor. 

This is the fulfilment of law, or in other words, the being 
filled full of mind. For as we ascend in the scale of 
power, we become more and more involved, or enveloped in 



GENEKATION OF MIND. 71 

mind, which, penetrating through and through, illuminates 
the spirit, and gives buoyancy and fluidity, or malleability, 
to the matter composing the body; thus connecting it with 
other matter, to influence, control, mould and fashion it for 
use, as one uses his hands. 

In order to pass from one nature, or mode of existence ? 
into another, generation and birth are necessary. This 
involves a sleep. The spirit worlds are of this nature. In 
order to go beyond them — to the realm of absolute power, 
the germs of the mind must be ripe. We are here for the 
purpose — some of us, at least — of generating mind; not 
merely to spend a few years in amassing wealth, or in toiling 
to support bodies. 

Those in whom the mind is not half generated remain in 
this nature to try it over and over again. Unripe germs 
will not grow. To pass into the nature or " Kingdom of 
God" a regeneration is necessary, because it is an incom- 
prehensible nature to this finite mind —hence the entire 
man must be re-made. The body is of no account. Mind 
is that which determines. Some minds are of no account. 
Fate determines. 

The truly generated mind may, and dees, regenerate the 
man, and endow him or her with supernatural power and 
immortal life, here on this earth. That which ensues at 
the death of the body is simply generation, and not a regen- 
eration; for in the regeneration the body is changed in 
quality consciously, by the joining to it of the Divine 
Mind. There is no sleep or trance in this ; it is effort ; not 
physical, but mental effort, in the destruction of things that 
disturb the harmony. 

There are many enemies to human progress, prominent 
among which are the following of a downward or retro- 
gressive series, which are antagonized by an upward or 



GENERATION OF MIND. 

progressive series. They may properly be termed Pow- 
ers — one of Light, the other of Darkness. 

Powers of Light Powers of Darkness. 

\ 1. Revelation. ( 1. Ignorance. 

( 2. Joy. ( 2. Sorrow. 

\ 3. Temperance. j 3. Intemperance. 

( 4. Continence. ( 4. Concupiscence. 

\ 5. Justice. j 5. Injustice. 

( 0. Communion. j G. Covetousness. 

\ 7. Truth. ] 7. Deceit. 

( 8. Good. \ 8. Envy. 

\ 9. Light. j 9. Fraud. 

( 10. Life. \ 10. Wrath. 

— Hermes. 

Kevelation may be known by its imparting a great satis- 
faction, rest, or joy to man. Joy is prolific, since it is the 
feminine of ideas. As Revelation drives away ignorance, so 
joy drives away sorrow — or prepares the mind to resist 
sorrow, and to be self-sustaining in its completeness — to 
stand calm and tranquil amid life's changing scenes, and be 
content and happy despite adversity. 

Temperance in all things is revealed as the source of 
health, and immediately is seized upon by the mind, and 
when it has grown apace, Continence, the feminine of it, is 
evolved. And they two drive away Intemperance and 
Concupiscence. 

"When this is accomplished the mind is as clear as a pol- 
ished mirror. The turbid waters of selfishness and lust 
have subsided, and Justice, stripped of vindictiveness, 
stands revealed as mercy, and becomes the ruling power 
of the mind. Then comes Communion, the feminine of 
Justice, and Injustice and Covetousness flee away. There 
is now no feeling of "mine and thine" left in the mind. 
All things are pure and all things are common. The com- 
munion of the sexes, of races, of spirits, angels and Gods, 



GENERATION OF MIND. 73 

is effected, and the mind trembles with its fullness upon the 
confines of absolute truth or oneness of being. 

The soul has now ascended to the seventh sphere, and is 
pregnant with male and female twins — "the Truth of Good, 
and the Good of Truth" which in due time are born into 
the conscious mind, whereupon deceit and envy take their 
departure. In the light of truth all distinctions and differ- 
ences disappear, and all things are good. 

But this light reveals another light — dimly seen at first — 
far away upon the backgrounds of the soul, fitful and 
fleeting, obscured by passing shadows, it grows brighter 
and comes nearer — an immortal light in the centre of which 
is the germ of another life — of an immortal substance 
called "the Tree of Life." It slowly enters into the mind, 
and descending from thence enters into and transforms the 
changeable matter into a substance at once homogeneous 
and not particled. The man is no longer in light and in 
life, but light and life are in him. 

The Infinite is no longer without and far away, but it is 
within ; not divided and separated from, but the integral 
part of all being, tangible, visible and intelligible. The 
impossible does not belong to this life, and flees away upon 
its approach, or is not. 

The darkness and ignorance which form the background 
of the soul, in which we are hidden from ourselves, has 
been withdrawn, and we are revealed as the Over-soul itself, 
containing all life and forms within. "We are no longer 
involved in law or mind, for we contain all of these, and 
are conscious thereof. And we use them as we now do our 
hands and feet. 

Man is master of all his soul embraces. This is the proper 
generation of mind, wherein the body and spirit are regen- 
erated. To such, death is not, for death is a weakness. 
The intuitions of a ripened mind are as broad and deep as 



i I GENERATION OF MIND. 

the universe, but those of a small or an unripe mind are 

weak and shallow. 

Hence the necessity of mutual culture — not in the acqui- 
sition of earthly knowledge, but in the effort to grasp 
creative power — philosophy, astronomy, etc., in their broad- 
est and deepest aspects. Philosophy is the highest of all 
studies. It wings the soul. 

Truth is so little known that it is folly to waste words in 
argument ; but speculate, think, entertain and master all 
ideas thereto ; imagine, grasp at the Infinite Mind, and 
bring it into yourself, for in the effort the mind expands, 
stretches out and grows. What if you accept an error to- 
day ? You can change your opinion to-morrow ! Above all 
things beware of fossilization. 

Had Jesus healed the whole world in a day, it would 
have been sick again in a few weeks, if not days. He did 
not teach worship, but manhood, as a Divine thing. He 
taught salvation as flowing from works, and not from his 
merits or blood, or from the worship of him, or anything 
else but principle. He taught the influence and value of 
belief ; and also of several kinds of baptism — of water, of 
fire, and of the Holy Ghost ; and also of a baptism which 
he should undergo at his death. 

We are left to conjecture what baptism he meant when 
he said, "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved," 
etc. (See Mark xvi, 10, 17, 18.) But we are not left in 
doubt in regard to its being the baptism with water, for the 
Christian world has been "sprinkled," "poured," and 
"plunged" in water for eighteen hundred and eighty-two 
years ; and where are the "signs" he said should follow as 
an evidence of salvation ? 

He said he was the bread of life ; to eat thereof was to 
be immortal. Now, the truth is, he was teaching the same 
thing I am trying to illustrate, and his ignorant apostles, or 



FENERATION OF MIND. 



some one else, have got it mixed up and distorted, in order 
to deify him. He said the bread of life came from heaven ; 
and also that "the Kingdom of God is within you." He 
also spoke of another birth, and of sight, as a result of that 
birth. Baptism with water is a symbol of purification in 
order to the reception of another Baptism, viz, that of fire. 
The Baptism with water is typical of the softening and the 
making tender (as a seed) the natural mind, so that it may 
expand or revolve in its growth towards rationality. The 
softened, tender, sympathetic, opening mind, inhales the 
fragrance of another life, and it buds, blossoms and bears 
fruits which are a blessing to all. Its blossoms are a sight 
of the kingdom of God, and its fruit is the entering into the 
spirit of all truth, and the birth of a Divine Body, 
indestructible and eternal. 

Bathing assists the will in the healing of the body, and 
in the subduing of the heat of passion. Water opens the 
pores of the body — belief opens the mind ; the first for the 
reception of magnetism (spirit), the latter for the reception 
of ideas, which are, indeed, of the soul (Holy Ghost). 

This is the building up of a divine body of a supernatu- 
ral substance, from the atmosphere of a thought- world. We 
need not die, if we only know how to live. But what can 
we say of a world of men who think of nothing but vanity, 
and for the serious part of life hire the thinking of it done ? 
The thoughts doled out from millions of pulpit- grinders 
every seventh-day are but the effluvia of the past, the 
exhalations of the dead. Y/hat kind of substance do they 
furnish for a dying world? Is this the "bread of life?" Is 
there a spark of original fire in it ? 

He who depends upon books for his inspiration h but an 
exhumer of the dead. The heavens are as open to-day as 
when Isaiah, gazing aloft, said, " Lo, I am God ! and I 
change not; therefore, ye sons of Jacob, are ye not 



76 GENERATION o:' KIND 

devoured." The Bame power is waiting for us to reacli up 
and take that exist ed in the olden time for him they nailed 
upon the cross. The tables of the Infinite are spread and 
loaded, but no one will be compelled to partake. Help 
yourselves, is the universal law. 

At the tomb of Lazarus, in view of a body lying stark 
and dead, with the smell of death, and the mould of the 
grave on his pallid lips, with eyes that gazed the Infinite 
out of countenance with their unflinching audacity, He of 
the magic TT7ZZ said, "If a man believe in me he shall not 
die." Did he mean physical death ? Most assuredly he did. 
Take this as corroborative : in speaking to the Jews at an- 
other time he said, " Your fathers did eat manna in the 
wilderness, and are dead ; but I am the bread of life which 
came down from heaven, of which, if a man eat, he shall 
not die," — meaning the same death the fathers died in the 
wilderness, viz: physical death. And yet, in the face of 
these positive declarations of the Inspired One, the pulpit 
organs grind out a spiritual explanation. They make Jesus' 
work apply to a future state, when he intended it wholly 
for this life. 

The Hermetic Philosophers, the Alchemists, and the 
Rosierucians, have all believed in and taught the doctrine 
of eternal youth, and sought for the "philosopher's stone," 
and the " elixir of life ;" and Jesus taught that life was 
within the Kingdom of heaven, which " is within you ; " 
and laid the foundation-stone, Belief. 

The fakirs of India cause a shrub to grow out of the 
ground, blossom, bear its fruit, and ripen it, all in one short 
hour. And it is no phantom fruit, for it is passed around 
and divided among the bystanders, who eat thereof. Scores 
of travelers have witnessed this feat, and many have written 
of it, but my authority is a gentleman of veracity who was 
born and reared in India. It is done under circumstances 



GENERATION OF MIND. 77 

which utterly preclude the idea of jugglery or trick of any 
kind. They know and say it is the power of the will that 
does it. But there is no growth to their power. Why ? 
Because they have no higher ideas of human powers than 
the manipulation and production of things. They are not 
a progressive people. They are at their highest point. It 
remains for the Anglo- Saxon race to go higher ; for it is a 
higher race. 

Jesus said, "Greater works than these shall ye do, because 
I go to the Father." And it would have proved true had 
they made the conditions. It remains for us to make the 
conditions, which are, to work for that baptism with the 
Holy Ghost and with fire, viz: the union of spirit and soul. 
Water makes the body soft, tender and pure. Baptism is 
to be submerged, swallowed up in the spirit, which is the 
beginning of a new life with wondrous powers, generative 
of new matter — a divine essence, superior to death and dis- 
solution, which in appearance resembles this body, but 
which, in fact, is not mortal. 

It was this body which Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Philip, 
Enoch and several Bosicrucians of the olden time are 
reputed to have had. This was why Jesus said, " I will lay 
my life down ; you cannot take it" This Divine body may 
die, if corrupted by the desire to die. Thus St. John could 
live, notwithstanding he was plunged into a cauldron of 
boiling oil, till he desired to die. The Divine body is not a 
spiritual body, hence it is no apparition, or materialized 
form dependent upon a medium and conditions. It is 
totally subject to the will, and as it is projected from the 
mind, it may be drawn back into the mind again, and thus 
disappear. Or it may change and become some other form. 
This was why the Disciples failed to recognize Jesus on the 
way to Emmaus. "He appeared to them in another form," 
says Mark. But when he had blessed the bread and broke 



, s GENERATION OF MIND. 

it, he was himself again, they recognized him, and then he 
disappeared 

At another time he stood in their midst, and as they 
doubted, he said, "Feel my flesh and bones, for ye know a 
spirit hath not flesh and bones." The doctrine of the 
metempsychosis of the soul is as true as it is old. All 
things are in the divine mind, and are projections thereof 
by Divine Will and Love. Hence, man, when he rises to 
the Divine, has the same powers, so far as he is concerned, 
as an individual. Thus, he may clothe the naked, feed the 
hungry, heal the sick, raise the dead, walk upon the water, 
still the tempest, or visit the GoD-worlds at will. 

AY hen that good time comes we will not need to take 
thought for to-morrow. Then we can " give to every one 
that asks," and "he that would borrow" we need not "turn 
away." Then " whatsoever ye shall ask shall be granted," 
not because ye ask in anybody's name, but because then we 
may say with Jesus, " I and my Father are one." Then 
there shall be no high and no low, but as brothers we shall 
dwell together, and the nations shall learn war no more. 
Then shall "the lamb and the lion lie down together," and 
" the knowledge of the Lord cover the earth as the waters 
cover the great deep." Then good-bye to mammon and to 
a civilization whose glory is "an eye for an eye and a tooth 
[for a tooth," — "whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall 
his blood be shed." 



CHAPTER VIII. 

ATTKIBUTES OF MIND. 

That which, can be ascribed to the mind is an attribute 
thereof. We have to do now only with a few. In my view, 
all things mundane may be attributed to mind, but distinct- 
ions are necessary to illustration. All attributes of the mind 
are dual — "Male and female created he them." They 
antagonize each other; one leads upward, the other down- 
ward — or inward and outward. 

All development is in expansive curves, from one to 
many; then in contractive curves, back to one again, of a 
higher or lower order. Nothing moves in direct lines. The 
expansion of the soul is her effort to gather power; her 
contraction is her effort to use that power. This is focaliza- 
tion. All power, to be of use, must be focalized. 

Intellect is the eye of the soul, which must be focalized 
in order to attain clear sight. The rays of the sun in 
diffusion gently warm, and bring out many hidden forms 
from the earth; but in concentration, fire is evolved, which 
consumes or obliterates these same forms of matter which 
were evolved by its gentle rays. Even the granite moun 
tain would vanish away as a vapor, if the light of the sun 
was all turned upon it. Yea, more! even the solid, beau- 
tiful earth would evaporate into the imperceptible — not 
even into blue sky — if the sun's forces were all turned 
upon it. 

localization is the destruction of the old, and the birth 
of the new. Intellect corresponds to the sun, not only in 



80 ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

Form, but in power. It is to mind what the sun is to the 
earth. Its darkness is ignorance, its light is the birth and 

life of many things. The diffusion of its light causes the 
mind to radiate into many channels, or attributes, in the 
growth of which the soul is expanded. 

But soul is not satisfied with this ; and when it is dis- 
satisfied it begins to contract itself for another and a 
mightier effort ; it turns all its power upon one point of the 
darkness, which, like an opaque night, surrounds it, and 
pierces through — as a burning of it into another life, or 
another method of this one. This is the begetting of another 
intellect (intuition) from this old one, which has been con- 
sumed, or left behind as a charred and blackened ruin. 

The door of intuition once opened, there is no more use 
for observation, memory, thought or reason; its light pene- 
trates the depths of all mystery; language becomes auto- 
matic; and, without thought or effort, ideas flow in as the 
waters of a mighty river; all reasonable needs are suppHed 
as if by magic. To such, if any there be, I can say, with 
Jesus, ;i Take no thought of what ye shall say, neither take 
heed for to-morrow. ?? 

Man, considered as a whole, is the focus of all forces 
beneath and above him. The essential qualities of all 
animation are in him, and find their focal point in the 
mind; hence the mind is composed of instincts, disunited 
or at war with each other, the harmonious union of which 
is the beginning of a new order or genus. Intuition is 
instinct humanized. 

It is a mistaken idea that mind suffers. Intellect simply 
knows or investigates — it does not feel. There is no such 
thing as mental suffering. The soul is sense and hence it 
feels — it is simply a power and being limited, confined, 
imprisoned — and sensing its condition exerts its power to 

jape. To provide for its comfort and protect itself it 



ATTRIBUTES OF MIKD. 81 

created the animal propensities — these are the lower or 
blind attributes of mind. The social, are of a little higher 
order — then come the poetical, inventive and imaginative-^ 
next intellect, or an attempt to see into the true relationship 
and adaptation of things and the laws governing. . But 
soul soon wearied of this outward panorama or " side show'* 
of existence, and turned the intellect within upon itself. 
This is focalization. All the attributes of the mind were 
concentrated or united into one grand power higher and 
superior to intellect, viz, Prescience. The soul is of " The 
Father" — and when its intellectual powers have attained 
the highest perfection, the soul not satisfied with anything 
less than its pre incarnate state, becomes exalted over its 
past successes and creates a new class of attributes out of 
the union of all of a lower nature. Thus were the moral 
attributes created — love, justice, devotion, hope, etc., etc. 

Thus have grown the attributes, from the exercise of 
which, all the various religions of the world have originated. 
Thus, by turning within and studying one's own nature 
does man become truly great and GoD-like. This is con- 
centration. The soul suffers and enjoys. 

We scarcely know what intuition is. There is plenty of 
sagacity and instinct in the world, but very little intuition. 

To it belong all the spiritual gifts we know of. Intuition 
is the seed of the tree of life. All seeds attract heat, moist- 
ure, etc., before they can project the shrub or tree; hence, 
the first law of intuition is attraction, which is the feminine, 
or the law of all mediumship. All inspiration, prophecy, 
healing, clairvoyance, clairaudience, psychometry, and all 
other spiritual manifestations, come by attraction. 

I am aware it is a physical condition; but the body is 
affected by our mental states as a thermometer is affected 
by heat and cold. Attraction depends upon attention. As 
a tender mother nurses and cares for her only child by 



OZ ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

unwearied watchfulness and attention, so are the gifts of 
the Spirit obtained and perfected. Intuition is the seed of 
the tree of life, and the various attributes of the mind which 
lead to gifts of the Spirit are its trunk and branches. 

The loftiest mind has not yet fathomed the depth and 
height, and multiplicity of spiritual gifts. They are all 
attributes of the mind, which, ascending spirally in cycles 
from the natural to the rational, at last bask in the bosom 
of the Divine mind. It is all within, waiting the baptism 
of fire, which comes by action. " Dead here, slumbering 
there, latent in all save a few," we look upon it as miracu- 
lous; as a manifestation especially ordered by Deity for a 
favored few. 

Mediums arrive at a certain stage of development, and 
there stop; then wonder why the gifts gradually die. (See 
chapter on Mediumship). The mind is a trinity in unity; 
that is, it is animal, mental and moral. The external mind 
corresponds to physical nature, and is called the animal; 
the intellect corresponds to fire — the spirit; the moral 
corresponds to the soul. 

There are seven attributes of the mind, each imparting a 
certain quality peculiar to itself. They have their antago- 
nists, as follows : 

Experience, I. 
II. Belief /\ Unbelief, II. 

III. Hope / \ Fear, III. 

IV. Knowledge / \ Ignorance, IV. 

V. Trust. / \ Distrust, V. 

YI. Love. / \ Jealousy, VI. 

VII. "Will. / V Reverence, VII. 

To the mind belongs quantity and quality. Quantity 
gives momentum, but quality gives elasticity and buoyancy. 
The attributes of the mind each has its antagonist, as shown 
in the above diagram. They both grow out of experience. 



ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 83 

but they are as opposite as day and night in the influence 
they exert upon us. Each exists by opposing the influence 
of its opposite; the life of one is the disease and death of 
the other. There is not life enough in the mind to feed 
them both to fullness, so they strive with each other for the 
"lion's share." 

The fundamental principle of this life is experience. To 
it belong observation, memory, thought and investigation. 
"We all begin and end with experience; if we try, we can 
not escape it; we must experience something. The exper- 
iences of some, however, are as trivial as that of a root 
which grows in the ground; according to the experience, so 
is the growth. 

We revolve in circles in our growth. Every experience is 
a circle — a triangular circle, of which belief, hope and 
knowledge are the angles. Knowledge is the ultimate of 
every act, of every experience, and is two-fold in its effects, 
viz: good or bad. It either adds to or diminishes, human 
happiness. The nature of the knowledge gives its effect, 
i. e., it imparts a certain quality to the mind conducive to 
happiness or misery. That which imparts rest, peace and 
tranquility, is conducive to health and happiness ; but that 
which causes dissatisfaction, unrest and agitation, conduces 
to disease and unhappiness. 

BELIEF AND HOPE. 

The great fundamental principle of Christianity is " Be- 
lieve, or you will be damned." This presupposes that man 
has power to believe as he likes. This is undoubtedly a 
truth as regards some men, while there are others who are 
controlled entirely by evidence, or, at least, by what appears 
as evidence to them. 

To convince a man of a truth, it must appear to him as a 



s I ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

psychological power. It must appear so fascinating as to 
carry his will captive through his love; then the evidence 
supporting it will appear very plain and logical. When the 
antagonist of belief overbalances belief, i, e., when persons 
are of a skeptical, doubtful, incredulous turn of mind, they 
are, as a general thing, not easily influenced ; they are in- 
flexible, and become fixed in opinions to which they become 
devoted. 

This devotion is the same out of the church as in. It 
closes the mind upon all sides, save the one through which 
-they look. They become bigoted in their one idea, which is 
a creed they are bound to sustain. Unbelief is the begin- 
ning of strife. It is a contradiction, and strife is sickening. 
The unnatural man fights for his opinions and against the 
opinions of others ; but the natural man loves repose, and 
is indifferent to opinions of others. 

Strife is of hell, and perhaps it is good for the unnatural 
but there is no health or life therein. Now, unbelief, being 
a negation or contradiction, it has within itself the spirit of 
agitation, which sets in motion discordant mental elements, 
antagonizing belief, which is of the soul — of intuition — the 
condition of childhood. The spirit of belief is that of child- 
ish innocence and credulity — of trust, hope and confidence. 
Hence it is peaceful and restful to the soul — so expansive. 

He who does not believe in immortality fails to do so be- 
cause he feels not the pulsating heart of God within him- 
self. Let him who believes keep silent till he knows the 
truth and can demonstrate it, if he desires good results to 
himself. I do not believe in strife, but let those who do, 
join battle. 

That a man cannot believe except from evidence, is true; 
but one man receives evidence from without, while another 
feels it within. We cannot accept a thing as truth except 
it be in harmony icith our inmost feelings. He who really 



ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 85 

believes in God believes in bis own power to become God- 
like ; but be wbo believes in tbe devil knows of bim, for be 
feels him within. 

We all instinctively believe in tbat wbicb we love. We 
believe in tbat wbicb barmonizes witb lis. Mental assent is 
no belief ; it may be forced out by fear, or love of appear- 
ance, or popularity, or gain, but tbe real belief is wbat we 
live. In view of tbis, Paul says, "As a man tbinketb, so is 
be." Belief is tbe fundamental principle of soul-growtb. 
Tbe credulous man stands bigber spiritually tban tbe in- 
credulous. Wby? Because all growtb and real power, 
depends upon tbe absorption of Divine fire, and belief opens 
tbe pores. 

All magnetizers are aware tbat belief and fear cause 
receptiveness. Fear is based upon belief. Tbo beliof in 
tbe " barmful Gods " bas diseased mankind tbrougb tbe 
cold, malarial influence of fear. We do not fear tbat wbicb 
we know ; it is tbe unknown we dread. True belief also 
gives bope, and bope casts out fear and imparts cheerful - 
ness. Belief in tbat wbicb we fear is not a belief, but an 
apprebension tbat tbe tbing threatened, tbougb unknown, 
may be true. Tbis apprebension or fear creates a trembling 
and quaking as of an ague. It is disease. 

He wbo believes in bimself reposes in bimself, and 
acbieves success ; but be wbo doubts bimself is afraid of 
bis sbadow, and acbieves notbing. Acbievement is tbe 
acquirement of knowledge — as ricbes. But be wbo acbieves 
notbing, knows notbing, and is poor ; bence be is dissatisfied 
witb bimself and otbers. He wbo knows least of bimself 
trusts bimself tbe least, and is afraid and doubtful. As of 
bimself, so of otbers. We judge otbers by ourselves. 

He wbo bas tbe most trust and confidence in otbers bas 
tbe best and bigbest knowledge — first of bimself, secondly 
of otbers. He wbo knows tbe most of money knows tbe 



ATTRIBUTES ov MIND. 

least of mankind. He trusts money, but not manhood, for 
his knowledge leads him to distrust mankind. Knowledge 
gives confidence or destroys it. Woe be to him whose 
knowledge diminishes his trust. Remove the little confi- 
dence we have in each other, and all friendship and socia- 
bility would cease. Nations and governments could not 
exist, and progress would be at an end. Confidence is the 
diviner part of us. It is the child-nature — that which is 
•' of the kingdom of heaven." 

Woe to him who has little or no confidence in mankind, 
for he has none in God. Sleep is sweet to the trustful soul, 
for God dwells within, and bars the door of darkness 
through which devils creep when we are off our guard. I have 
heard men boast of their doubts, of their unbelief and in- 
credulity. But to me it is an evidence of smallness of 
mind. Religion has become the laugh and grimace of the 
world, by reason of the want of comprehension of its votar- 
ies, and of the unbelievers. 

He who worships symbols is an idolater, and rightly pro- 
vokes the mirth of others ; but there is something sublime 
in principles w T hich always commands respect. The under- 
lying principle of all religion is the same, and is as old as 
humanity. True, out of this principle — this fire- faith of the 
olden time — have grown up dwarfed and hideous forms of 
religion, at war one with the other, as man wars with maiij 
or nation against nation. But the principle is still Divine, 
and universally breathes of the brotherhood of man, and 
the Fatherhood of God. 

Who is there who, in contemplating the wonders of crea- 
tion, has not felt the leaping of flame thoughts, as if in 
rapture — the kindling of a divine fire within that leaped 
and glowed with a fervent heat, melting our hardness of 
nature, our skepticism and unbelief in the wisdom of cre- 
ative genius ? Ah ! who has not gone hence from this closet 



ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 87 

of worship feeling like a coward, humbled and we^k as the 
publican and sinner who smote upon his breast, and cried, 
" Father, forgive me, a sinner ! " I repeat, it is the small- 
minded, weak man, who quenches the fires of his own soul 
by his doubt and skepticism. 

To gaze aloft at the stars and rear not out of your own 
soul a spiritual temple of principles for the guidance of 
life's actions — for the use of mankind — and instead, only 
spend our time in tearing down the house wherein our 
neighbor worships, is unworthy of manhood. Power is that 
which builds anew — not that which destroys. It takes 
genius to build an edifice, but a rat might undermine and 
topple it to the ground. Doubt, skepticism and unbelief are 
so many walls surrounding us, isolating and insulating us 
from each other, and keeping us far from the realms of 
power. 

In proportion as we know a person to be truthful do we 
trust ; the love for truth is natural ; and it is our nature 
to believe in truth; and whenever we find it, w r e trust it, 
and hope for its increase and perpetuity; and when we 
know of it w T e love it, and will its spirit to be ours. Belief, 
hope, knowledge, trust, love and will, are all of kin to truth, 
and he who cultivates these graces shall yet be filled with 
righteousness. 

Hope is based in belief. "It is an anchor to the soul.*' 
In proportion as I believe a thing do I hope for its truth. 
In proportion as I believe in others do I hope for their 
health and prosperity. We rest in our hopes. The grave 
looks less desolate to the hopeful soul. Cheerfulness and 
smiles are hope's children The unbelieving are the hope- 
less and the dissatisfied, he who believes in nothing, hopes 
nothing; the hopeless are the desperate. Which road will 
you follow, dear reader, for the truest knowledge? Do 
doubts and skepticism stand in your way, and choke and 



S^ ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 

strangle belief? Destroy them, then, by not paying atten- 
tion to their croaking. Forget your "doubt by keeping in 
your mind and constantly before your eyes that which you 
love, or that which you would like to believe in and be. It 
is by the attention we bestow upon little things in the mind 
that makes impassable mountains of them; forget, or refuse 
to behold them, and they become mole hills. 

Have you an enemy — one whom you can scarce endure ? 
You know no good of him. This feeling does not make 
you happy — better destroy it speedily. Visit him in his 
prosperity and in his affliction frequently ; talk with him ; 
interchange ideas with him ; enter into his life-plans and 
hopes. In process of time you will find some weakness in 
him that will arouse your pity, which is not far from friend- 
ship. The ingredients necessary for success in this is, first, 
a desire on your part to bring about the result, if for noth- 
ing else than your own peace of soul ; second, a belief in 
your ability to accomplish what you undertake ; third, a 
cheerful hope of success ; fourth, a true knowledge of your- 
self — of your self-control and psychological power, and of 
extraneous means to affect him physically, such as gifts, or 
good and unobtrusive acts. My word for it, before you are 
done with your man you will be surprised at the amount of 
good feeling and friendship that will be developed between 
you. Perhaps he fancies you have done him a wrong. If 
you can possibly find some flaw in yourself, go and accuse 
yourself to him, and beg his pardon ; accuse yourself for 
the very things you know he is guilty of, but never accuse 
or upbraid him. But if you do this with doubt and unbe- 
lief in your heart of any good in him, your eyes will look 
your distrust, and he will be driven away from you as from 
a reptile. Control begins at home. 

Consider the value of friendship, and the evils growing 
out of enmity. Meditate upon your enemy, and when thus 



ATTRIBUTES OF MIND. 89 

wrapped in thought, with your attention fixed upon him, 
lo ! your spirit flashes like the lightnings to him, and min- 
gles with his spirit, thus leaving an impression for either 
good or evil, just as you feel. Tour belief in yourself is of 
importance here, for if you doubt yourself, and the Good 
God who dwells alike in you and your enemy, your prayers 
fall far short of the mark, and you will find your will weak 
and your mind scattering. Know you not that the same 
creative power called him into existence that did you ? Dare 
you question the purposes and wisdom of the creator ? "Why 
do you hate or dislike him ? Because he does different than 
you wish him to ! Because he is not as you wish him to be I 
Ah ! It is the same old story, " Great I and little you." 
Better by far "pluck the motes out of your own eyes" be- 
fore you essay to sit in judgment upon your neighbor. 
When you judge others you are judging God, and yourself, 
for God is in all and is all. Then ponder these things well, 
my friend, for " Blessed are the merciful, for they shall 
obtain mercy." Woe to him who thinks wrathfully of 
others. There is no divinity in wrath. God could not be 
Infinite if all things were alike ! If you are good show 
your goodness by increasing the good. That is our work. 
Believe in all things, because they are of the Father — you 
know not but your enemy was given to try you ! Can you 
stand the test ? Wrath piles up wrath as wood piled on a 
fire, but "gentle blows kill the devil." 

Which road will you follow, reader, belief or unbelief — 
in order to make the most of yourself ? Which leads to 
power? 



CHAPTER IX. 

ATTBIBITES OF MIND.— Continued. 



KNOWLEDGE. 

It is said that " knowledge is power." This may be so in 
one sense, but let us examine and see wherein it is true. 
There are different kinds of knowledge, some of which are 
a destructive power. The knowledge of this world is based 
on facts gathered through experience. All the facts known 
have reference to matter, and things related thereto. So 
the relationship of things is the sum total of human knowl- 
edge as founded on facts. Is destruction power ? It is not 
reasonable to call that power winch destroys health and 
happiness; in fact, weakness is a more fitting name for it. 
Of course, there is force manifested in destruction; but it 
cannot be said to come from knowledge. 

To illustrate: In the construction of an edifice, some 

mistake, blunder, or oversight, leaves a defect in some 

important part, and after a time, in some manner — even in 

the settling of the building it falls to the ground, and in 

a moment the labor of years, notwithstanding the knowledge 

of many skilled artisans, may be ruined tb rough the weak- 

Qess of ignorance. Shall we say, then, that ignorance is 

power ' J . It would be just as logical as to say that knowledge is 

power, unless it can be shown that knowledge has some real 

I lasting benefit to confer. Is such the fact ? Is there 

al in our much-boasted knowledge? 

*s happiness and health is of more importance to him 



KNOWLEDGE. 91 

than anything else in existence; and that which will confer 
the greatest amount of these upon the greatest number 
must be real power. It is claimed by the church that the 
knowledge of God will do this. This, indeed, might be the 
case if there was any such knowledge in existence. We 
know nothing whatever of God ! Nature we see every day, 
but all any one actually knows of it could be put in a very 
small compass. All we know is that which happens under 
our immediate observation. That which happens in one 
place may be known to a few persons in that locality, but 
that which happens in another place is unknown to them. 
So, it is easily seen that that which any one person actually 
knows of nature and its phenomena is very small. The 
most of what we think we know is mere hearsay. 

In the sciences even, we shall find the same weakness. 
Chemistry is based upon experiments made during past 
centuries to the present date, which experiments, indeed, 
illustrate wonderful mysteries. But what is really known 
save the effects of certain combinations ? A person learns 
how to produce the phenomena, and to repeat the names, 
etc., of the chemicals and the products, and he forthwith 
imagines he possesses a wonderful amount of knowledge 
and is immediately dubbed " Professor." The bulk of the 
knowledge is in a long catalogue of names intended to 
mystify the ignorant to the glory of the " Professors." 

It is certainly a great thing. For gunpowder was 
invented; forthwith war became a " science." "Military 
tactics" are a great thing! The possession of this knowl- 
edge helps a man up wonderfully! To be "major," or 
"general," or "colonel," is to be up in the clouds! They 
tread upon the earth as if they disdained it; butchers, pilla- 
gers, ravish ers! the destroyers of peaceful homes! What a 
power! The science of government is buili upon the blood 
ye have shed. What a store of knowledge it takes to be a 



92 KNOWLEDGE. 

legislator, governor, president or king! To make laws to 
hang the lowly, and to enable those who have knowledge to 
escape. 

Look yon at the vast sums of money spent yearly to keep 
the government of even one State running. (Now, we are 
not regretting the money, but are thinking of the aching 
limbs and backs that toil year in and year out to support 
this cursed display of knowledge.) For w T hy does this 
government system exist ? So that millions of soldiers may 
be kept in worse than idleness; so that hosts of the so-called 
great may live without toil; so that the ill-gotten gains of 
the rich may be guarded, and th <sy protected in their legal- 
ized swindling and high-handed robbing — so that the 
millions may be kept subservient to the few. 

All legislation and governments are based upon the false 
and illogical assumption that " the dear people" need force 
to compel them to do right. Is not this assumption based 
in ignorance of the real character of mankind? What kind 
of knowledge is it that springs out of falsehood? It is a lie 
from foundation up. Look how you have multiplied legis- 
lation till the laiv books exceed the brains of the world. 
Law is now a science, about which its professors differ as 
much as the professors of theology do about religion. 

To keep this hydra-headed monster alive colleges are 
built and sustained, wmerein the most promising youth of 
the land are immured to bleach, fade, and grow premature- 
ly old, in order to learn — what ? Legal quibbles, techni- 
calities, and precedents, whereby in the great majority of 
cases, justice may be defeated. In the great (?) courts 
of law the best talent is generally arrayed against justice, 
and in favor of wrong. Law signifies rule, and rule signi- 
fies a king and " nobility" — false distinctions among men. 
Why do they exist? So that the few can fatten upon the 
toil of others ; so that a few can ride in coaches, dressed in 



KNOWLEDGE. 



93 



the finest fabrics, wnile the many can walk, (or " tramp," 
as it is now fashionable to call it), and go in rags. 

A short time ago, I saw a man lying under a bridge. I 
asked a Methodist " divine," with whom I was talking, why 
that man was lying there? " Oh! I don't know," said he; 
"I suppose it is some tramp laid down there to rest. I 
have no use for that kind of people." And the law is for 
the upholding of that spirit. They nailed the poor " tramp" 
of Galilee upon the cross in the olden time. Ah, me! 
What a world of knowledge this is. 

Chemistry has given birth to the science of medicine; 
another assumption based in ignorance. It assumes 
that disease is a thing of the body, and that physical 
substances — drugs — have power to cure it. Bah ! The 
more medicine you take the sooner you die. The 
wholo system is mere guess-work. Anatomy and phy- 
siology may be termed sciences ; but they are merely 
the observation of the body. When it comes to the appli- 
cation of their facts to practical utility, aside from surgery, 
"humbug" expresses its real knowledge. And yet, see 
how the arm of the law is thrown around its army of 
cormorants and extortionists to protect them in their rob- 
bery of the ignorant toilers. 

You tell them that all diseases spring from the mind, and 
a fallen, reversed, perverted and monstrous love nature, 
and that drugs only palliate symptoms, but never cure any 
disease, and they elevate their professional noses with a 
sneer and a laugh. They know it all, because, forsooth, 
they have passed an examination and have a " diploma," 
and by virtue of knowledge oppose every advance in the 
healing art. What a wonderful science ! 

Then, again, there is the church ; what a power it is ! 
" By their fruits shall ye know them." What are its fruits ? 
its basic principle is the authority of a musty old book — 



9 L KNOWLEDGE. 

"the Bible" — over which a ceaseless strife is kept up as to 
its real meaning. Thoughts and legends, hearsay narra- 
tives, so-called facts of the long ago, called "holy." An 
assumption of an overruling Providence who answers long- 
drawn words, accompanied with " holy " hands uplifted, 
and eyes turned upward, in public and in private, to be 
seen and heard of men ; a Providence who loves some and 
hates others : an idea at once at variance with the sun that 
shines, and the rain that falls, and with every instinct of 
a true human being, and which all nature, animate and 
inanimate, stamps as an assumption of ignorance, based in 
the lust of rule. A pretence of holiness, and of humility, 
to conceal the rottenness of greed, lust and pride. Its 
principle is that of king- craft and priest- craft : the few 
ruling, and living by the toil of the many. Church, sci- 
ence and State — a trinity of hell in which devils are 
hatched. Pride is the floor of it. Is it ignorance or knowl- 
edge ? Knowledge gives the power to rule ; but it is the 
ignorance of the masses, and of the many honest and good 
men who preach and uphold this thing, which is the foun- 
dation. There may be some knowledge about it ; but igno- 
rance exceeds it, as the sky exceeds the small earth. This 
assumption of holiness is a falsehood from first to last, 
and its direct influence is to create the feeling that one man 
is better than another. "Am I not a child of God? And 
you are a child of the devil. Lo! I am better than you, 
because I am holier than you, and God loves me, and hates 
you." Such is the unspoken voice of the Christian world ; 
but it sounds very loud. One day is to be kept holy; but 
the other six are unholy; the days of toil — of the produc- 
tion of the necessaries of life — these are unholy days ; 
idleness is holy ! What a mockery of true manhood and the 
truth ! No wonder the world runs mad with the idea to get 
rid of toil ! The church teaches that it was a curse put upon 



KNOWLEDGE. 95 

man. Of course, he is at liberty to escape it if he can, and 
the priests and aristocrats of the world are doing it upon 
the hard-earned bread of the ignorant dupes. Why should 
I feel holier at one time than at another ? And how am I 
to enter into holiness ? To be happy is to be holy, and 
mankind find their health and happiness in the alternation 
of rest and exercise. Is one any holier than the other ? 
All nature says "no" and he who teaches differently simply 
shows his ignorance. Jesus was of the same opinion. 

I admit the Church to be a power — but it derives its 
power from the ignorance of mankind. Its creeds and dog- 
mas spring from ignorance of the character and attributes 
of God ; and the baseless supposition and assumption of 
the existence of a Devil and eternal Hell torments. Take 
the Devil out, and the churches would become sublime, and 
grand schools of moral and religious instruction. Take the 
Devil out — and the plan of salvation would have no founda- 
tion upon which to rest. True it is, that men need saving 
from themselves, for Hell is within them. But that the 
Infinite Creator and author of all things, should have to 
resort to a pitiful "plan" to save from his own wrath the 
weaklings He called into being, is too absurd to think of 
for a moment. It is only ignorance that can honestly teach, 
and only ignorance that can entertain, such an idea. If God 
wanted for anything, he would be less than God ; if he 
wanted the world saved, it would be saved in a moment — 
in the twinkling of an eye. Man has plans, and in his 
ignorance he imagines that God has also. If God hated 
anything for one brief moment, the universe would that 
moment cease to be. 

"When we speak of knowledge, we speak of truth. Jesus 
was dumb when asked, "What is truth?" All knowledge 
is relative ; there is no absolute knowledge. So knowledge, 
in order to conform to truth, must deal in the relationship 



96 KNOWLEDGE. 

that man sustains to others. Now, inasmuch as there is 
only an approximation to knowledge, man must depend 
upon his perception of the truth as his guide to the basis 
tionship. This perception comes through much 
thought, and is an intuition or a revelation of the truth. So, 
power, to be of use, must be guided by 'perception or revela- 
tion. This comes to man by the exercise of his mind — in 
freedom. 

Revelation to one man will not do for another, except as 
it helps him to see ; nor will the revelation of one age do 
for another ; for the race progresses, or grows beyond the 
perceptions of a previous race. Xow power exists ; but it 
is no more in knowledge than in other attributes of the 
mind of equal radius. 

Kindness may have but little knowledge of itself, and yet 
we all know there is more moral power in it than in mere 
knowing. Knowledge is of no use to the soul save'in the 
opening of the mind to a perception of the true relation- 
ship of things. In the lower orders the law is for the strong 
to prey upon the weak ; but man, in proportion as he rises 
above the brute plane, comes under the law of equality, 
and it is revealed to him as a great truth. His knowledge 
of his relationship to others has changed, and he now no 
longer preys upon the ignorance and weakness of others. 
The law is equal eights in freedom. 

He knows now that power comes through union of feel- 
ing and brotherly love, which no knowledge on earth can 
give. Knowledge is not power, but it is the road to power, 
if you can find it ; but that which seems to be the road may 
be a blind. The experiences of life all have a tendency, 
when looked at rightly, to wean us from its toy shows and 
vanities. Facts are of value only in this. 

The swift-fleeting years rudely tear the illusions and 
delusions of youth from every true man of mature age. 



KNOWLEDGE. , 97 

What, in reality, is the knowledge of this earth worth beside 
the bed of death, or at the grave ? The half-witted clown 
with an abiding hope and confidence in spirit-life hath more 
power under such circumstances than all the millionaires in 
the world without. 

Power is in self-sustaining calmness — not in money, nor 
in knowledge. The knowledge that binds a man to this life 
by ^he development of pride, egotism and self-sufficiency, 
is a curse, and a source of weakness instead of power. The 
knowledge that makes one all alive to the woes and misfor- 
tunes of others lifts him out of the soulless laws of busi- 
ness, and upward to a recognition of the fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man. This is the knowledge that 
gives power. This is the knowledge that sustains in all 
trying hours. 

Such claim very little knowledge, but much love. The 
knowledge of this world — of matter and its laws — are for 
this world, and are true to our senses while in it, but are not 
applicable to other worlds or other senses. It may be — ■ 
nay, it is possible — to develop senses in this life adapted to 
another mode of existence, where pleasures are real, and 
life is earnest and enduring, and your sciences of no ac- 
count, and your gold as vapor. Is such knowledge real 
power? Yes! but it is not knowledge, but a gift of the 
Spirit through the death of these sublunary things. It is 
not of the intellect, but of intuition. 

Oh, how blind and dumb we are ! We behold the miracle 
of the rising sun daily, or feel it in a perpetual motion 
within and around us ; but instead of being delighted at 
having discovered the finger-marks of the Infinite, we say, 
"Oh, that is natural ! " Child-like, we are satisfied with a 
name; that ends the discussion; "I know what that is ! 
That is nature." 

Men of science will explain the laws of digestion with a 



98 



KNOWLEDGE. 



flourish of names, and wonderful erudition; but what does 
all this knowledge amount to? Diseases outgrow your 
remedies. We do not know why food in one stomach 
changes into elements to sustain life, and in another is con- 
verted into acids and filth. Indigestion ! Ah ! another 
name to explain away ignorance, and to shove God further 
away from recognition. 

Such is knowledge — an excuse to hide our shame — our 
ignorance. We do not know how much or how little the 
Infinite adds himself to us, or withholds himself from us in 
our eating, drinking, sleeping, waking, thinking or talking. 
But when I tell you that the vital substance of these bodies 
comes from the intangible — the unknown and immaterial, 
the supernatural — instead of from the food we eat, you say, 
"That is all theory; that is speculation or conjecture." 

I grant that scientific knowledge is good enough so far as 
it goes — and that is merely to combining and compounding 
matter for use — and the use has proved destructive to man's 
best interests. It has filled the world with egotism, mater- 
ialism and unbelief. It teaches that death is a fact, fixed 
and certain. But it will yet be demonstrated that death is 
a mere disappearance, and that the disappearance is not a 
fact except to the blind — blinded by this world's light. 

Knowledge is the basis for conjecture. He who does not 
believe in conjecture is an unbeliever, (trusts only in facts, 
physical, tangible, and shuts the windows of the soul 
through which we may gaze upon fields of infinite beauty, 
and behold truth in its purity), and there rests satisfied. 
He who believes nothing except what he knows, is a very 
small pattern of a man, for in point of reality he knows 
nothing. 

The man who ties himself to "facts" is like a fly in a 
spider's web : he is not satisfied. There is a wail within 
him, as of a drowning babe. It is only when he can forget 



KNOWLEDGE. 99 

himself and his doubts that he is happy. When you have 
gone through the whole gamut of experiences, and find 
reality and permanence in nothing, and vanity and vexation 
of spirit as the sum total of this life, you have then reached 
the plane of knowledge. This takes the egotism out of a 
man. He is then empty and receptive of Divine influences, 
and is led to trust, and to have confidence in creative wis- 
dom. Trust leads to love of God in his works — not of 
objects, but of a principle embodied, and working in objects. 
Thus it may be seen that the road to power starts at belief 
in God. 

He who believes has Hope. Hope is cheerfulness and 
happiness. Truly we believe in that which harmonizes with 
our feelings. To believe in a thing through fear is not be- 
lief in this sense, but rather a conviction of experience, far 
beneath belief. It is a shock, an agitation, wherein there is 
no rest or satisfaction. All conversions through fear testify- 
to this truth. He who is converted through fear has no 
intuition ; hence he is not called from above, but from 
below. 

Intuition does not come from without, hence no teaching 
can awaken or open it. Instinctively we fear that which is 
not in harmony with us. How, then, can we believe in that 
which we fear ? We always desire to destroy that which 
gives us pain. The fear of God is a pain which the world 
tries in vain to remove by sacrifices, prayers, and flattering 
ceremonies. Fear does not lead to knowledge, or blending 
of natures, but to unreal and erroneous views of God and 
of each other. It builds walls around us, as a citadel in 
which to defend ourselves. It isolates man from his fellows, 
and arms nation against nation. 

We fear that which we hate, and love and serve that 
which we are in fellowship with. Fear springs from belief, 
but it is in a descending scale: it is beneath and not above. 



100 KNOWLEDGE. 

The fearful are not the hopeful. Hope is the anchor of 
the soul. It is God's garden in the soul; the Eden wherein 
the tree of life and of knowledge grow side by side. With 
hope, the poor in their hovels can live in palaces built in 
air. Without hope, the rich in their palaces live in real 
hovels. 

Conjecture is stirred in the mind by the last expiring 
wave of heat that descends from Divine fire, as it deposits 
its ashes as .the facts and forms of existence. Belief is the 
rlame-tip ; hope the glow of the red flame ; knowledge is 
where the flame bursts forth ; unbelief is cold ashes. Right 
belief is belief in man, and it inspires hope in man, and 
gives a correct knowledge of man. This is a correct knowl- 
edge of God. How can we believe in God when we do not 
believe in man ? How can we have hope in man when we 
fear him, and hold aloof from each other ? How can we 
know God when we really do not know any thing in exist- 
ence? 

I. Let us investigate all things ; for this is experience. 

II. Let us believe in all things ; for there is a spark of good 
in all, and the wisdom of the Creator may be found therein. 

III. Let us hope all things ; for the good manifests itself 
in hope. Be of good cheer, for all is well. The hopeless 
are desperate. 

IV. Let us know all things ; for the essence of things is 
fire ; and he who knows the most is the purest, having been 
purified of his pride and vanity by the absorption of the 
essence of things. 

This is the mundane circle — the four elements — the four 
points of the compass. He who has passed around this 
circle has returned to the point from whence he started, viz: 
nature — indifference. He is a child again, without pride or 
egotism, hence is receptive to the Divine influences, which 
lead him in a supernatural manner upward to the abode of 



KNOWLEDGE. 101 

the gods. Those who return to this point are capable of 
going higher. 

We all revolve in the mundane circle in quest of knowl- 
edge. Some gain a little, others a great deal. To some it 
imparts trust or confidence in man (or God) ; others grow 
misanthropical, and become soured on the road, and trust 
no one. Acid is cold; it kills the warmth of the blood, and 
gradually, but surely, extinguishes the fires of life. Dis- 
trust is acid. 

We become fixed in our opinions on the circle, and branch 
off, either upon the upward or the downward road. Some, 
however, revolve in the circle of knowledge all their lives, 
and still have no opinions of anything outside of the mun 
dane circle. 

It is said that only fools have confidence in mankind ; 
but this is a mistake. The best and greatest men the world 
has ever known have been child-like in their trustful nature. 
The rogue and the knave are never trustful. 

We have existed previous to this life; and we come here 
from above or below, bringing the aroma of the world we 
came from with us. 

There are three grades of mind, corresponding to the 
three general conditions of Spirit-life. This world and this 
life are a battle-field between the celestial and the terrine 
worlds, an intermediate state where souls are given a chance 
to ascend higher if they choose. There are many grades of 
being, both ascending and descending ; and man mentally 
and physically corresponds thereto. 

The spirit of the world you will inhabit after death is 
within you, and, as sure as fate, will gravitate to its home 
when freed by death. The spirit of the terrine world be- 
gets all manner of vices and diseases, whose culmination, 
unless healed, is total loss of all power and consciousness. 
All love and humane affections come from the celestial. All 



102 KNOWLEDGE. 

things die in love, and all things are born of love. The 
extremity of grief is the beginning of joy. The last throb 
of pain is the first throb of pleasure. Ecstacy is close upon 
the confines of despair. The extreme woes of hell vomit 
out souls purified by fire. Extreme knowledge strips a man 
naked of his egotistical garments, and shrouds him at the 
gate as if for burial. 

This is the death of knowledge : the state of the mind is 
changed ; it has reversed its polarity. His intuitions begin, 
to work in his despair of life, and he receives that which if 
to the soul what knowledge is to the mind, or food to the 
body. Intuition begins where worldly knowledge ceases. 
Its methods are inductive, instead of deductive. To the 
intuitive, knowledge comes by impact, rather than by con- 
tact. All revelation comes through intuition. 

The foregoing is the secret of all conversions. The des- 
pair of the sinner, when at its culmination, dies. Its death 
is the birth of ecstacy, which many mistake for the regen- 
eration. But it is perfectly natural that pleasure should 
follow pain: hence there is nothing supernatural in con- 
versions. 

The deeper and more heartfelt the despair, the greater 
the pleasure that follows it, and the more real and lasting 
is the conversion. But God's Spirit comes through intui- 
tions — spontaneously, by labor and constant and unwearied 
attention — by purification of the mind, and a preparation 
of the body for its reception. It is natural to believe in 
the supernatural, but unnatural not to believe in it 



CHAPTER X. 

FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

The most fatal enemy of the soul is doubt. He who 
doubts his own powers cripples himself. He who 
fokgets his doubt rises superior to himself. He who 
believes in, and has confidence in himself, has more power 
than he who doubts his own powers. Moreover, the more 
confidence a man has in others the greater is his friendship, 
and the more friends he has. Friendship is the measure 
of influence, and, consequently, of power. (In order to 
simplify, I will only speak of belief, knowledge and faith in 
this chapter.) Out of belief comes knowledge; and out of 
knowledge comes faith, or, rather, that which approximates 
faith and makes it possible, viz: Intuition. 

Perfect faith comes from perfect knowledge; but inas- 
much as we are imperfect beings, and, consequently, have 
no perfect knowledge — not even of ourselves, and still less 
of others — how can we even approximate a definition of 
faith ? much less a knowledge of the powers it may confer 
upon its possessor! "Why scoff at the sayings of Jesus, 
when we do not even know what he meant by faith ? He 
certainly estimated its value very highly, for he said: " If 
ye have faith like a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to 
the mountains, be ye moved and cast into the sea, and it 
shall be done." It is evident he coupled it with the will, 
for it could be done by a command, and no prayer or sup- 
plication is even hinted at. What great thinker ever 
extolled doubt ? or taught that it ever conferred any great 



L04 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE 

Mossing upon its possessor? Not one! It is simply a 
destructive power — a negation; it builds nothing; it destroys 
all that it touches. 

A desire to know the truth is commendable. Respect 
for others leads to the interchange of ideas and investiga- 
tion This is good. Never doubt a proposition till you are 
sure you thoroughly understand it. Never doubt the truth 
of another till his falsehood is a demonstrated fact. Know 
a thing before you reject it. Be hospitable to the way- 
farer: for although you may be imposed upon many times, 
you may some time entertain an angel. Some thoughts are 
angel -sent. 

Said a Materialist to me: " Am I to entertain a proposi- 
tion simply because you assert it? Suppose you say the 
moon is made of green cheese — am I to accept it ? That is 
too absurd!" Such puerile arguments are used by pretended 
thinkers. It is as logical to say the moon is " made of 
green cheese" as that a flower is made of mud. Either one 
is absurd; but the self -same elements enter into and com- 
pose the sun, moon, stars, earth, light, thought, and " green 
cheese" Such are the arguments the doubter is driven to, 
to sustain a semblance of logic. 

Knowledge is the ultimate of mental action, and if, at its 
highest point, or apex, it meets the spirit world with suffi- 
cient intensity to become impregnated with a desire for 
something grander, and a more lofty idea of human nature 
and its possibilities ; with not merely an idea " to know 
good and evil," but to know the good, and to have power to 
do it under all circumstances, then, indeed, it may truly 
be said to be the road to power. As such I recognize it. 

Analyze, sift, digest all the facts and phenomena of this 
existence; weigh the stars and suns of space, and trace 
them in their eternal voyage ; dissect the human form, and 
search the convolutions of the brain, and, if at the end, 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 105 

you have no belief in the divinity of creative power, no be- 
lief in the spirit that has escaped your telescope, your scal- 
pel, and your scales, tell me not that your knowledge is the 
road to power. For real power is repose, rest, trust, confi- 
dence and harmony. That which brings no satisfaction and 
rest is destructive. 

So, knowledge may build up the soul and expand it, or it 
may contract and weaken it. If knowledge makes a man 
egotistical and proud, it does him harm ; but that knowl- 
edge which causes one to realize how small and insignificant 
he is, and how very little he knows, and of how little value 
that knowledge really is to him, makes one negative, and 
receptive to the world of intelligences which surround him. 
Then it is that they come near and speak to his soul, and 
he conceives an idea of "Bkahm," "Allah," "Jehovah," 
"Jove," or "God." 

The knowledge of facts is good, for it expands the mind ; 
and when the mind is sufficiently expanded, it leads to deep 
thought, reverie, abstraction ; and abstraction opens the 
door of the soul, viz : the imagination. 

The imaginative are the credulous. Power does not come 
from one thing alone, but from the All — the Infinite. 
Knowledge is necessary to weakness and infancy; but for 
the gods there is no knowledge — it is simply faith. 

Faith includes all things of an inferior nature, as the 
over- arching dome of heaven encircles all within it. It is 
beyond all knowledge, then w 7 ho can explain it, or who 
can understand it ? It is to the soul what knowledge is to 
the mind. As we can only approximate knowledge men- 
tally, so we can only approximate faith intuitively. 
According to our knowledge, so is our faith. In exact pro- 
portion as we know wife, children and friends, do we have 
faith in them. 

Knowledge is not predicated upon anything but truth. 



10G FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

It is not satisfactory to merely know that a thing is false. 
We rnnst know the truth in order to be satisfied, and to be 
made whole and clean. As you know yourself, you have 
faith in yourself. As you know God you have faith in hirn. 
All that the mind can grasp of anything is that which 
appears, and this appearance is a revelation of something 
hidden. It may come in dreams or in visions, or in 
reverie, or in contemplation, reading of books, or conversa- 
tion; or listening to sermons or lectures may provoke the 
conditions necessary to induce revelations; but in whatever 
way it may be induced, it is subjective; it is a union with 
the thing thought of — a oneness of spirit and being. 

You have faith in yourself because you are at one with 
yourself. You have faith in your wife in exact proportion 
as you are one with her. Faith in things changeable, and 
hence untrue, is destructive; because they desert you and 
leave you empty. 

Faith is a pow r er which comes to man as a revelation, in 
the expansion of the soul, when the mind is closed up, laid 
away, as it were, or suspended — held in abeyance. Then 
things sublunary disappear ; and the ineffable glory appears, 
and, entering in, is one with souL-giving power undreamed 
of by mortal man. Faith steadies, sustains and fortifies the 
will ; combines all spirit in one. The powers of dissolu- 
tion and of creation are of faith. It is effortless. It is the 
suspension of all mundane laws. 

Knowledge is of no account, only as it assists one to 
enter into the Spirit. Then it is set aside, as a man having 
scaled a wall, and not being obliged to return, throws the 
ladder dow^n. Think you this faith and power can come to 
us ? Nay ! We must ascend to it through a regeneration 
in the Spirit, and by a birth of the Spirit It is another 
mode of existence, to be entered only through birth. Salva- 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 



107 



tion is from weakness, disease and death, and thus from 
hell; for hell is an outgrowth of these. 

We work the best we can to prepare the way; but we 
make mistakes and failures in our ignorance, and fall 
continually. But faith is a gift of the Spirit in answer to 
our intentions and aspirations. In faith there are no 
mistakes nor failures. It is not possible to lose faith when 
once attained. How is it possible for a child after it is 
born, to become as it was prior to birth ? Faith is universal. 
There is no one or particular faith. 

There is no such thing as " the faith ;" consequently 
faith cannot be lost, any more than God can be. Talk 
about " falling from grace," and " losing the faith!" Non- 
sense! They never have any to lose. There is a fall, 
however, in the pretense of possession. The pretender 
always falls. 

It is the habit to speak of faith as a something akin to 
belief — as blind — as less than knowledge. But this shows 
our ignorance. Faith is to the Divine mind what knowl- 
edge is to the natural. Through and by knowledge things 
of use are produced and multiplied in the earth. Through 
and by faith matter is evolved from the spirit, which, from 
a chaotic, formless state, takes form such as the will may 
determine. 

By this method Jesus made bread and fish for the hungry 
multitude. A few loaves and fishes were sufficient to fur- 
nish a nucleus of attraction, when, in obedience to his will, 
his Spirit flowed in and assumed the form desired. 

In support of this Idea that it was his spirit which en- 
tered into the loaves and fishes and multiplied them, i. e., 
was transmuted there and then into bread and meat, please 
read his own declaration (see Mark xiv ch., 23d and 24th 
verses, Luke xxii, 19, Matthew xxvi, 27, 28, 29). "Take 
and eat, this is my body," etc., "Drink ! this is my blood !" 



108 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

"I and my Father are one." How beautiful, and. yet so 
simple ! God is in everything, and is everything. We eat 
him, we drink him, and we breathe him. These things 
support these bodies, but the thoughts we think are the 
breathing in of our spirits from his spirit. The elements 
composing food are the same as those composing our bodies. 
Attraction is the soul and life of every atom of matter in 
existence, this principle is in humanity termed affection or 
love, and Jesus said, " God is a Spirit," — not a form but a 
Spirit. John, the " beloved Apostle," in speaking of the 
same thing afterwards, wrote, "God is Love," and "No man 
hath seen God at any time." Why ? because spirits are not 
seen but felt. Anger, pride, avarice, etc., are spirits, but 
they have no form except as they take form in acts, they are 
felt within us, and manifest themselves outwardlv. Thus 
God or love dwells in all that is ; — and he who hath most 
love in his heart sees and feels the most of God in all out- 
ward manifestations, because he feels him within. So when 
you eat your meals, consider it is partaking of "the sacra- 
ment." The thoughts you shall have of your food shall 
call the spirit uppermost in your minds thereto, and charge 
it with life and health ; or if you eat with an envious, cov- 
etous, or an angry mind — then disease and death attends 
your eating and drinking. If you love your food, it does 
you good, but if you loathe it for any reason, you better 
not partake. Be thankful for what the Good Lord doth 
send ; for in so doing you do become full to overflowing 
with the spirit, and food becomes spiritualized and multi- 
plied, assuming any quality desired Not only that, but 
food may be produced spontaneously, as Jesus produced it, 
or any poisonous substance be made harmless — solid matter 
moved from place to place without visible force. The meth- 
ods by which this may be done are not easily explained, even 
when one possesses the power. Why ? because the power 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 109 

does not exist wholly in mind. Mind leads up to it, as it 
leads to the soul. Faith is a soul-power which descends 
into the man at times by reason of the union of Belief and 
Knowledge. For knowledge is a thing felt by the soul, as 
well as comprehended by mind. I do not believe 2x2 make 
4 I know it — it is a demonstrated certainty; and my soul 
rests satisfied in its fullness of this truth. Belief is in things 
of which the soul may glimpse in an uncertain twilight, — 
which when found out becomes a certainty to the soul, 
and knowledge to the mind — thus the soul and mind are 
connected, or the door opens, for Spirit with its satisfaction 
and rest, to enter into the man in power. The nature of 
the knowledge determines the elevation and satisfaction of 
the soul, and the degree of power given. Thus does one 
enter into the Spirit, and the Spirit enters into him, first by 
evolution, second by involution. The Mind by concentra- 
tion and limitation of thought evolves a stream of light in 
one direction, which when at its ultimate height receives a 
rush of Spirit in which Power resides. In view of this 
principle of evolution Jesus said: " First seek the kingdom 
of God, and then all other things shall be added unto you." 
The kingdom "is within you ;" it "is at hand ;" it "is like 
unto a pearl of great price ;" or "like a little leaven which 
a woman hid in three measures of meal." The meal is a 
type of the body, mind and spirit. 

The wisdom of things is seen in their mechanism; the 
order and harmonious arrangement and adjustment of parts, 
and the ease and perfection of motion without jar or fric- 
tion. The same is true of the mental and spiritual man as 
of the physical. The jar and friction of this life is what 
wears out the machine called man. Each and every atom 
of the body is in motion, and they are in health well poised 
and lubricated. This is harmony. But when there is not 
a proper balance of all the essentials, there is a discordant 



110 FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

friction of parts, and a loss of power, motion, health and 
vigor. The soul furnishes the lubricator, viz: magnetism. 
I call your attention to the fact that the great balance- 
wheel — the regulator, love — is sadly out of line. 

The kingdom of heaven is harmony, power, eternal youth, 
life, innocence, and peace. The principal element of the 
kingdom is wisdom born of love and will. If love be lack- 
ing, or be of a low, vulgar order, the wisdom born of her 
will be inharmonious, and the kingdom is that of disease. 
By wisdom, through faith, are all things made. But if the 
wisdom be inharmony, and the faith be small, or none at 
all, what can you expect to flow from the spirit; or, what 
quality of life will be generated f 

Bear constantly in mind, kind reader, that when I speak 
of God, I speak of your power of will and love. When I 
speak of wisdom, I have reference to the harmony of your- 
self. Harmony means a great deal. Harmony means one- 
ness; no conflict; no opposing elements; no warfare 
between the flesh and the Spirit. " The lamb and lion have 
lain down together." Remember, health is altogether due 
to what little harmony we have. The greater the harmony, 
the more wisdom. The greater the wisdom, the more life, 
peace, rest, pleasure. Discord wears us out. The best of 
us scarce last half a century, and that length of time is 
enough to disgust most people of life. 

We are scarcely able to generate magnetism enough 
to keep this human machine in order more than fifty years 
at the utmost. Now, were the love pure and innocent, and 
the will strong and Grod-like, the wisdom or harmony of 
the machine would be more perfect, and the life evolved, or 
the spirit set in motion, possessed of such power that 
mountains might be dissolved; or bread, fish, flowers, cloth- 
ing, or human forms evoked at pleasure, and the machine 



FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 



Ill 



possessing such power could wear on eternally without 
friction or age. 

" Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to 
the Father" (Spirit.) The dark and noisome earth — the 
fiery constellations of heaven, with their countless hosts, 
all exist by the will of God, and are sustained by his love 
and wisdom. But he lies slumbering as in a tomb in the 
things he has made ! The mighty mountains piercing the 
clouds, crowned eternally with purity, as a flame-tip, tell 
us in their vomitings of fire — in their groaning, and shaking, 
of the nature of him who sleepeth beneath. 

Tombstones are they, flame -shaped and spiral, marking 
the resting place of the infinite. They show the oozing 
out of his power, and the aroma of his presence fills space, 
things and men with his returning consciousness, which, 
when fully returned, will swallow up all things as matter 
in fire. The changing forms — the mutability of things — 
is due to the fire which dissolves, changes, and combines 
matter. The will baptizes the fire as with water, and thus 
in wisdom preserves forms, and perpetuates life. It holds 
it in check, and regulates the heat so that we are not con- 
sumed. This is the esoteric meaning of the baptism with 
water. 

If the will can restrain the fire through its exercise, it 
also can unchain the lightnings and vomit out flame, which, 
though unseen, shall not be unfelt, and which, meeting 
things on the way, passes through, dissolves, and causes 
them to disappear noiselessly, in decency and in order. The 
same hidden and unseen power drove back the lightnings 
in their mad revel on " dark Galilee " at the simple words, 
" Peace! be still." 

It is the unnaturalness of man that keeps the Infinite 
under. We cannot return to nature, but we can rise up to 
the supernatural, and still exist. We suffer pain, because 



1 1 - FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. 

of the deficiency of fire. How easy for the strong will to 
turn a flame upon the dark door of it, and exorcise it as if 
by magic. AVe are full of darkness and sorrow, because 
we are vacant. How easy to be full if we are only wise ! 

To attract the fire and hold it by baptism is fullness ; 
which j indeed, is life-pleasure ; nay! ecstacy, beside which 
trance is as a clrearu. In purity all power resides. Fire 
renders all things pure. It reduces, refines, purifies and 
illuminates all things. Fire flows from love. But you do 
not know what love is. You think it hath something of sex 
in it ; and so it has, for sex is a symbol of it. The ecstacy 
of a virgin soul when first baptized by the contact of a 
spirit, all in harmony, is a poor expression of love in its 
abstruse sense. But it is the best I have. Love is not the 
soul. But the emotions we feel that satisfy us, we call 
love. These emotions felt by the soul are produced by 
movements of the spirit being projected by the will from 
the mind to the soul. Soul is the mother; Spirit is the 
Father ; and love dwells in a latent state in all things till 
roused into action. So Spirit or God being love, produces 
emotions only by action, which is effected by mind in us. 
When latent it is power — when active, the creator. The 
highest and most ecstatic and exalting emotions mankind 
know — those that transform us into Gods, or debase us to the 
lowest Hells — are by the union of the sexes produced. 

It moves the whole sensorium of the soul, and by its 
motions evolves a spiritual fire that burns in the nerves like 
a volcano. As a volcano vomits out molten earth and min- 
eral, so fire, trained by the will (baptism) decomposes all 
dross and baseness, which it eliminates from the system, 
leaving nothing but the pure metal. Beware of the fire, if 
you are impure ! it will leave not a vestige of you, soul, 
mind or body. Love builds up or destroys. Slow, linger- 
ing decay is as certain as rapid combustion. Nothing comes 
out of God's crucible but immortal beings. 



CHAPTER XL 

THE SOUL. 

" The soul that sinneth, it shall die." —Bible. 

I have already defined the soul as a vacuum, and herein 
appears the impossibility of it. The sublime and the ridic- 
ulous are so closely united that sometimes one is taken for 
the other. Modern philosophy, backed by science, says 
there are no vacuums ; that " nature abhors vacuums " — 
thus virtually admitting their existence ; for how can nature 
abhor that which has no existence ? It is not possible to 
conceive of a thing which has no foundation or existence. 
The supernatural is denied also, and that shows the weak- 
ness and nakedness of philosophy. The soul is supernatu- 
ral, and it is a vacuum ; but it is not given to ordinary minds 
to comprehend this. How can the natural mind believe in 
that which nature abhors ? We instinctively try to destroy 
that which we abhor, and the mind that rejects a proposition 
is at variance therewith, and its thought is that of destruc- 
tion. 

No man can conceive of the supernatural, except he have 
a something in himself in harmony with the idea. The 
soul is a vacuum — it is supernatural, because nature cannot 
destroy it; and that which is hidden is always superior to 
that which is visible. Soul corresponds to the feminine 
principle in nature, but this correspondence does not make 
a natural thing of it at all. It is not a thing, but that 
which gives birth to things. Attraction is the feminine of 



ill THE SOUL. 

nature, but this is not the soul, but that which the soul 
produces as a governing law in nature. 

In nature, things are moved by contact and by impact. 
Operations by contact are always downward. We cannot 
operate upwards, save as we receive that which is superior 
from above by impact. This is the way of the spirit. 

Spirit is natural, unnatural, terrine, and celestial, and 
may become supernatural by working itself out of the laws 
governing those four grades of spirit; or, in other words, 
by becoming master of all of nature's methods, operations, 
modes of action, etc. This is within the range of man's 
powers. This nature in which we exist is not infinite. 
There are other natures. This is a peculiar one, in which 
motion is the law. Perfection of motion is the ultimate of 
this nature. Perfection is stagnation, of which we know 
little. The perfect union of soul and spirit is the super- 
natural, but the spirit is swallowed up by soul in such 
union. 

This union was called "Nirwana" by Gautama, which 
Hardy, the translator of Budhism, says, means annihilation. 

But he mistakes. It is an existence outside and above 
all human comprehension. Hence the difficulty of explain- 
ing it. All spirit is fire; but spirit outside of soul has 
quality, quantity, sound and colors ; which are lost in the 
fusion or oneness of soul and spirit. " Things of the spirit 
are nonsense to the common mind." Soul is not a thing, 
save it be united to spirit, neither can we conceive of it 
save in imagination. 

To conceive of the soul is to make a thing of it — thus man 
creates his own soul as a thing. Without such conception 
the soul is formless, and there is no permanence or reality 
to its existence, i. e., it takes any shape, according to cir- 
cumstances and conditions. To give form to the soul, then, 
is man's highest work. The souls of vegetation and 



THE SOUL. 115 

animals have no fixed or durable form. The same is true 
of some men. 

All perfect forms are spherical, and the Rosicrucian sym- 
bol of a winged globe is a type of a perfected soul. Some 
Rosicrucians claim that the soul is located, or has its equa- 
tor, at the pit of the stomach in the solar and semi-lunar 
pexus, with one pole in the brain and the other in the sexual 
organs. This is undoubtedly true of a perfected soul. But 
in its imperfect state it is in every atom of the body, and 
cannot be withdrawn therefrom save by death. 

The lungs are the physical representation of the soul's 
wings. All flights of thought depend upon inspiration — a 
breathing in, as it were, of another atmosphere from a 
thought-world. The perfect soul can leave the body at 
will, and fly away to realms more vital than this. But the 
imperfect is held fast to the atoms in which it is anchored 
by demerit. The perfect soul and spirit can make and 
dwell in any kind of a body it chooses, and dissolve it at 
will. 

There is a vivifying and vitalizing, exhilarating and exalt- 
ing influence comes by deep and protracted breathing ; but 
in thought there is a deeper, broader, higher, and more pro- 
found exaltation, because it touches the sensorium of the 
soul itself. Breathing is physical ; thought is mental ; but 
meditation is the poising of the soul's wings for flight. 

There are some thoughts which take hold on the filth of 
hell, which they stir up to the degradation and damnation 
of the thinker ; there are other thoughts which elevate the 
30ul and exalt the thinker. In neither case does the thinker 
go outside of himself in his thought, albeit he imagines 
that he does. 

In order to become an epitome of all, man must pass 
through all, which can be done mentally, for the true man 
lives in his mind. He must dissect himself, and analyze all 



116 THE SOUL. 

his passions, motions, emotions, motives, etc., and master 
thorn all. They are the steps in his ladder of progress. He 
must begin at the bottom to climb. The sexual and love 
nature are at the foundation of existence. God has so or- 
dered it that man's greatest happiness, as well as his great- 
est woes, spring from this source. If there is anything im- 
pure about it, it is in the mind of him who so estimates it. 

Of all acts the sexual is the most potent, for herein man 
approaches the nearest to the portals of Divine creative 
energy. Here, in the veiled temple of women's body, God 
baptizes matter with his Spirit, and lo ! it becomes an im- 
mortal being, having in embryo all the powers of God him- 
self. Is there anything degrading about this ? The true 
man and woman love their children. The great solace and 
pride of their lives are offspring ; they are a result of this 
relation, of which we may only speak in whispers, and over 
which a pall must be spread. As if God has made some- 
thing of which man is ashamed. 

In this relation soul meets soul in an ecstatic blending of 
Spirits, and a watchful God bending low from on high 
"broods over the Holy of Holies " in the temple, and accepts 
the sacrifice, consumed with fires of love, and entering in, 
is born of woman. "The Immaculate Conception" is the 
result of a perfect union of man and woman. The result- 
ing child must, of necessity, be superior to the parents, for 
such is "the Cheist, the Son of the living God," not of a 
dead one, for dead Gods produce half men and women — 
devils in human form. "We are dead in trespasses and 
sins." 

A virgin typifies purity of Soul. " The Holy Ghost" is 
"the Holy Spirit," or a pure Spirit. Now, the union of 
such produces "the only begotten Son of God;" for God 
cannot be incarnated in impurity, save as a progressive 
being. The only way God can be begotten of man, or in 



THE SOUL. .117 

man, is through purity. But what is purity? "What is 
sin ? Disobedience of law is said to be sin. "Without law 
there could be no sin, for there would be no standard, or regu- 
lator of action. This is an idea as true as nature, and as 
old as humanity. The writer of Genesis expressed it in an 
allegorical manner, or as a fable or parable. Law is, after 
all, only a mode of action. But of what action is sin pre- 
dicated ? Sexual action ! Nothing more, and nothing less. 
'Strange idea ! And wherein is its truth ? A virgin is pure ; 
but a mother — a fully developed woman — one whose love- 
nature has had full expression, is impure ! 

I am not one to scoff at an idea hoary with age, which 
has had the respect and reverence of the good and great 
for untold centuries.* This vague legend or tradition, of 
the fall of man, must have a foundation in truth, for it 
belongs to all races and nations. And this is also proven 
by the present condition of mankind, which I have set 
forth under the head of The Unnatukal. It is a matter 
of little or no consequence, how it happened, but it is of 
vital importance to know wherein the fall consists. 

The ancients wrote allegorically. The fundamental 
truths were not for the multitude, hence they were hidden 
away in parables, or conveyed in language intended to 
mislead. All knowledge of value was fast locked in the 
temples, and taught only as mysteries to the initiated. But 
in their writings the truth is manifested occasionally, espe- 
cially to him who has "the keys." The ancient wise men, 
seers and prophets, were deeper versed in the mysteries of 
nature than we are, hence some of them stood nearer to 
God, and received truth more in its purity and simplicity. 

The fall of man was the fall of the soul from its perfect 
spherical form to a diffused or atomic state. To a perfect 

*See Chapter on Spirituality. 



118 THE SOUL. 

soul the emotions are perfectly subject to the will, and any 
part of the system may be affected in any manner desired, 
without the provocation of contact with objects. Before the 
fall woman was a subjective or spiritual being (taken from 
Adam while in a trance, as I will more fully explain here- 
after) — a materialized spirit, with which Adam copulated, 
thus preventing her return to a subjective condition. 

"When the soul fell to an atomic state, subjective things 
became objective, and contact of things became necessary 
to produce emotions of pleasure and pain. Adam did not 
need the contact of copulation to produce ecstacy, for it 
could be produced without — by will, and that without waste 
of virility. And the command was that he should not cop- 
ulate. Such, evidently, were the views of the ancient phil- 
osophers, as I will try to explain further on. 

The scientific world is mad with evolutionism. Dakwin 
has sunk modern thought low down in the mud ! Proto- 
plasm is God ! It appears to sense that out of mud come 
flowers and fruits. This appearance, however, is the same 
as that the sun rises and sets — the earth flat, etc. It is a 
delusion. That which appears is not the whole truth ; the 
most vital truths do not appear to observation. A plant or 
tree grows up out of the mud, but the floivers and fruits 
descend. There is a descent as well as an ascent, and at 
the point of union there is generation. This is nature's 
copulation. Plants, flowers, fruits, living things, eyes, ears, 
thought and feeling, do not ascend out of the ground, any 
more than the stars or the sun-light does. There is a mys- 
tery connected with all things which is insoluble, and the 
indents deserve as much respect for their effort to explain 
it as Dakwin and Huxley. 

Man grew, and still grows, as plants and animals do ; but 
who knows how they come, or from whence ? If thought 
lies perdu in the mud (as a flower), is it any less an unfath- 



THE SOUL. 119 

omable mystery, or any less worthy of adoration than if it 
be enthroned in the stars or in a God ? It is just as logical 
to suppose that sense makes the mind as that mind evolves 
sense. In view of these things, I turn to Plato, Socrates, 
Pythagoras, Gautama, Appolonius, Jesus, Zoroaster, 
Hermes, Moses and God, for my inspiration. 

Realizing that inspiration is as potent now as of old, I 
ask Jesus and Appolonius if disease and death are not a de- 
lusion of sense. They answer, "They are I" Far away in 
the dim and shadowy past some one conceived an idea, and 
wrote that God said: "In the day thou eatest thereof thou 
shalt surely die." Is it not true? Is this life? If so, I do 
not want more of it ! But this is more death than life. The 
loftiest mind has not yet conceived of real life. This is, 
indeed, one long-drawn sigh of anguish ; a mad dance of 
demons ! A scramble and a rush after toys. If this is life, 
and all of it, then, indeed, is God or nature a demon, en- 
acting an awful tragedy, for 'tis worse than a farce. 

Man dies for lack of vitality; which, indeed, is virility, 
and virility springs from love, wherein it is generated. So 
all diseases, pains, and death itself, spring from an abnor- 
mal, or unnatural action of love, or the sexual nature. Un- 
doubtedly the ancients understood the "fall of man" to be 
a fall of the blood. The laws of Moses support this con- 
clusion. The rite of circumcision — the rites of purification 
— the sacrifices with fire, and the shedding of blood, and 
the obscure narratives of the old Testament show that they 
considered sin as sexual. The same idea seems to have 
been entertained by Jesus, for he said: "Woe unto you," 
etc., "verily I say unto you the harlots go into the kingdom 
before you." Why were harlots named instead of other 
criminal classes? 

And again: "Some men are bom eunuchs; others are 
made so by men; others make eunuchs of themselves for 



120 THE SOUL. 

the kingdom of heaven's sake." This, when rightly under- 
stood, Joes not mean castration. The Buddhist priest who 
has attained the power of "Irdhi," (the power of levitation, 
of walking- upon the water, or of passing through the air. 
or of visiting at will any of "the three worlds," or " the 
Brahma Lokas,") has no sexual desires at all, and is as 
incompetent as an eunuch; but he has all his organs per- 
fect. He has, by a certain course of training, turned his 
virility upward and inward, instead of allowing it to flow 
downward, and outward, in the commission of what St. 
John calls sin. 

Turn to the first Epistle of John, iii, 9, and you will find 
the real definition of sin, "Whosoever is born of God doth not 
commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot 
sin, because he is born of God." Loss of virility, then, 
must be sin. The first sin ! The monster sin of the world ! 
out of which all others flow — as water from a fountain. 
Connect this with Gen. iii, 11: "I will put enmity between 
thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; 
it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his (?) 
heel." (Heel here means something else.) The word " his" 
here means her. (It has not yet been settled what the 
serpent here spoken to means. Theology calls it "the 
devil;" but the serpent is the symbol of wisdom.) Seed 
here spoken of must mean the same spoken of by John, for 
the bruising of it is all too apparent in all the hospitals and 
medical museums of the world. 

Read God's admonition of Cain prior to the murder of 
Abel: "If thou doest well shalt thou not be accepted? and 
if thou doest not well sin lieth at thy door, and unto thee 
shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him." Strange 
language to use in order to deter one from doing wrong, to 
tell him he should become ruler by sinning. " Onan" was 
slain by the Lord because sin lay at his door — i. e., wasted 



THE SOUL. 



121 



(Genesis xxxviii, 11). What is a door but a place of 
egress ? Let him who reads think. But we are not depen- 
dent upon the Bible and conjecture for what we believe 
upon this subject. Buddhism, five hundred years older 
than Christianity, numbering 369,000,000 adherents, con- 
taining all the principles that Jesus taught, and much more, 
teaching the way to supernatural power and " Nirwana," is 
sexual from the first to last. All birth is sexual, hence 
" the second birth" spoken of by Jesus must have reference 
thereto. 

The curse put upon the woman: " I will greatly multiply 
thy sorrow and thy conception" was a sexual penalty, show- 
ing that "the fall" was a fall of the blood; and as if 
in corroboration of this idea, nature weeps tears of blood 
periodically from the mysterious recesses of woman's body. 
Woman, of all God's creatures, is the only one so accursed. 
The atonement is of blood and of love. Through woman 
came the fall, and through the virgin soul must come 
immortality. Salvation is woman's work. 

By the shattering of the soul into atoms, it lost control 
of the vital essences, nerve aura, or fire of the body; hence 
man fell under the control of his passions, and love became 
inverted. Hence man is the reverse of what he primarily 
was, and disease takes the place of that divine ecstacy 
which is his heritage. " The sins of the fathers are visited 
upon the children to the third and fourth generation." No 
sins but those of the blood are so visited. Love is the life 
of the blood, hence in the Scriptures blood typifies love. 
The blood of the sacrifice of the lamb, and of the atone- 
ment, all refer to love. Man's passions are not love, but 
its lowest expression — its inverted expression. 

To attain to life and love in its purity the foundations of 
God's Temple — man — must not be rotten. If rotten, it 
must be made new. How Herculean the task! How gigan- 



122 THE SOUL. 

tic the work! No wonder Jesus said : "Except a man be 
born again he cannot see the kingdom of God I" None but 
a God con Id re real these things of the soul to man ! 

As I said before, I say again: Meditation is the poising 
of the wings of the soul for flight, and the most potent 
meditation is that wherein passions are crucified. Man is 
an angular being, and in order to attain perfection these 
angles and triangles must be worn off. Your character and 
disposition (not your reputation) is indicative of the form of 
your soul. 

The man who revolves through life, like a jagged rock — 
crashing, knocking, bumping, grinding, flaying, and demol- 
ishing objects that stand in his way, is far from being a true 
soul. True, he may get the angles knocked off ere he gets 
through his journey; but the journey of the soul is infinite, 
and it takes countless ages of experience to round out a 
soul to a durable and permanent form, and then, w T hen all 
the angles and corners are chipped off, it may be a very 
small thing, scarcely possessing any consciousness at all. 
But whatever its size may be — provided it is not a monad — 
it retains its form, and in the lapse of time and the increase 
of consciousness, the dim past becomes more and more vivid 
and real, till at last all previous stages of existence become 
a matter of memory. In whatever form it may be impris- 
oned, the character manifested will be harmonious and 
peaceful. The true rounding off of angles is done by the 
chisel of thought from within. We are the architects of 
our own selves. AVe build by our thoughts and acts the 
temples or hovels we inhabit. Some, indeed, live in caverns, 
or, reptile-like, in holes in the ground. Some inhabit the 
great deep, and lie in the slime at its bottom. 

Soul orbits differ as the orbits of the planets ; hence the 
ages of souls are not alike. Some revolve in small orbits ; 
they make a revolution with great rapidity. Others, again, 



THE SOUL. 123 

revolve in orbits so vast that millions of ages are as a sec- 
ond of time, or a degree of distance as from one universe 
to another. Stations there are on the way of the soul, 
where rest is taken, and new forms made ; mysteries ex- 
plored ; other laws learned, and the soul enlarged. 

There is no end save to weakness; the downward termi- 
nates at the centre, where no forms exist — the above has no 
limits — universe after universe stretches away illimitable. 
Sense makes boundaries ; but soul overleaps or breaks down 
all barriers. A mere creature here ! A nothing, to be scoffed 
at, doubted, and destroyed by sin, it becomes in its flight 
stronger and stronger, larger and larger, till it becomes a 
creator and governor of worlds, and the architect of uni- 
verses and of other souls. 

We are merely halted here on our eternal voyage to learn 
of this peculiar nature — to master its secrets and mysteries. 
When we have done so, we will go on our way. Some souls 
are older than others ; but no soul can leave this earth un- 
fledged. You cannot leave till you hawe learned all that is 
to be known of it, and mastered all its creative forces and 
laws. 

True, we have a rest occasionally, of a few thousand 
years, in some of the heavens or hells of spirit- land or the 
GoD-worlds, from which return is not only possible but cer- 
tain ; not merely to communicate, but to be re-incarnated. 
W T e sometimes leave our bodies in deep sleep, and visit 
strange places, see strange faces, and learn many new 
things, which we bring back in part to our waking state. 
W^aking state ? Indeed ! The real waking, conscious, living 
state is when this physical is in a deeper sleep than the 
deepest trance. The more globular the soul is, the more 
easily it may detach itself from the atoms first, and then 
and lastly from the body. This detaching is a drawing to- 



1 2 1 THE SOUL. 

gether, or contraction, or abstraction of itself, in which is 
health. 

Sleep is better than medicine. The cause of disease is 
the close relation, or contact of the soul to the atoms of the 
body. The withdrawal of the soul permits the spirit to 
enter any diseased part and restore it. The soul is foreign 
to nature, and its imprisonment therein corrupts nature. It 
abhors nature as much as nature abhors it, and it is bound 
to get out of it, in one way or another — either by growth or 
decay, or by both. 

From my boyhood I studied and practiced phrenology, 
and studied myself closely. Wishing to make the most of 
a defective organization, I strove to cultivate myself to the 
utmost of my abilities. But knowing my many defects, I 
felt often discouraged and dissatisfied with myself. One 
night, in deep sleep, I was outside of my body. There it 
lay before me, a mere lump of plastic clay. I said : Oh, 
you defective thing ! If I had had the making of you, I 
would have made tUat head far different. A voice said : 
"Fix it over to suit yourself." I immediately went to work 
upon the plastic head, and moulded it to my notion, and 
then got into my body and tried it on. It did not suit me. 
Again I got out and remodeled it, with the same result. 
Time after time I essayed to make it over to my notion, but 
without success, till at last the head was all out of shape ; 
in fact, it was no longer human. And the joke of it was 
that I could not get it back to its original shape. In my 
perplexity the voice said : "Trust in creative power ! Make 
the best use you can of your head, and by and by you will 
have a better one." Then I awoke, and since then I am 
content to work and wait in harmony with nature, and not 
find fault. 

Some of us, at least, are double at times. Nature is not 
partial to individuals. The way to power is open to all. 



THE SOUL. 125 

" Many are called, but few are chosen ! " Why ? because few 
choose to struggle up the stream, when it is so easy to float, 
like drift-wood, downward. 

To crucify the loves is a superhuman task, and so repug- 
nant to man's everyday life and thought that most men will 
turn aside from my book in disgust and contempt; and yet 
there is so much talk in the churches about " taking up the 
cross !" Alas for unbelief ! 

Whence comes the celibacy of the Catholic priesthood ; 
the asceticism of India, and the peculiar tenets of the 
Essenes ? — amongst whom, it is said, Jesus was " devel- 
oped." They did not marry, and held property in common, 
as did the early Christians. They held, as we of the Rose 
Cross hold to-day, that marriage, as now understood and 
practiced, is unnatural. The asceticism of Catholicism, if 
it was not borrowed from Buddhism, is synonymous with it, 
which existed long before Gautama's time, who lived five 
hundred years before Cheist. But no matter how old ascet- 
icism may be, or how much it may have been practiced, or 
how much spiritual power may be attained thereby, it is the 
exoteric of religious ideas, as much so as any of the forms 
and ceremonies. The esoteric has never been, and never 
will be, given to any but the initiated. It is the much- 
talked-of "Philosopher's Stone," and "Elixir of Life" — 
the least of all known. This subject, however tedious it 
may be, is intimately connected with the soul, for it is the 
soul of Rosicrucia, as well as all religious systems. It is 
not asceticism which gives purity —it is only a method for 
its attainment. It is from the thought that ali things come. 

"Not that which goeth in at the mouth defileth a man, 
but that which goeth out." Sin defiles, for it "layeth at 
the door." The greatest sin a man can commit is the 
waste of the life a good and beneficent Creator has given 
him for his use, and not abuse. Promiscuity is a mockery 



120 THE SOUL. 

of God. The awful diseases that spring from it show the 
nature of the sin committed — its defilement, and its curse. 
As the very ground withholds its rest, peace and strength 
from a murderer — as God said it should from Cain — so 
woman withholds her spirit from the debaucher. 

The painful or pleasurable action of any part of the sys- 
tem is due to the presence of the soul in that part. If the 
soul be withdrawn from any part, that part has no sensa- 
tion, and the spirit, taking the place of the absent soul, 
builds anew 7 the part afflicted. If the spirit be overcome by 
a strong magnetizer, and the soul thus driven back, repelled 
or forced out, the body has no sensation, and amputation or 
other painful surgical operations may be performed with- 
out the subject being aware of it. This fact is well 
authenticated. 

This power of withdrawal of the soul resides in every one 
who has a will. It does not depend upon the magnetizer 
at all, but upon the well-regulated action of the will. Self- 
magnetization is a well-known fact among Spiritualists, and 
practiced by all mediums to a certain extent. But it is too 
limited to be productive of the results above spoken of. 
Paralysis is the obstruction — through insulation — of the 
spirit in its free passage through the system. The soul is 
left alone in a paralyzed body or limb, without the spirit to 
give life and power — as all power depends upon movements 
of spirit, which is effected by its union with the soul. 
Mind is merely the connecting link between the two. The 
partial withdrawal of the soul is indicated by vibratory 
motions in the nerves, which, being extended, produces 
ecstacy, then trance, or insensibility. Those who follow 
sitting in circles are aware of this. 



CHAPTER XII. 

MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 

I have already spoken of progression and retrogression, 
as balancing each other in motion. The symbol of the 
Cross in a circle is illustrative of this. The upright, or 
" Phallus," indicates the law of progress; the horizontal line 
the cross of the laiv— retrogression, or the fall of man; while 
the circle is the sigma of eternity, or of revolution. Man, 
in growth and decay, is simply matter in motion, and he 
must conform to the laws of motion; i. e., he revolves in an 
orbit, as worlds do. 

All life is one ; man differs from the animals only in form 
and the amount of life and mind he embodies. Life has 
no beginning nor end; but forms begin, grow, decay, and 
end. The law that governs one form governs all. Forms 
are not progressive to any great extent, but mind is. 

Consciousness is the highest manifestation of life. Man 
and animals both exist after death, for power cannot die. 
It takes ages for matter to progress up to a form perfect enough 
to manifest consciousness and thought; so it takes ages for 
it to retrograde to a loss of it. Even form does not change 
suddenly; death itself is powerless to effect any material 
change in the form; but the rough garment of the soul 
merely is cast aside by death, and the spiritual body is 
immediately formed — fashioned in the mould of the mortal 
body. But this body, being like the natural body, com- 
posed of spirit condensed, is subject to the law of vastation 



L28 MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 

in the spiritual worlds, tlie same as here. Consequently 
the form changes, as the soul comes nearer and nearer to 
the union with spirit. As a man is here, so he will com- 
mence on the other side. If he is progressive here, he 
continues to progress till the merit he has acquired in this 
life is exhausted, then he will commence retrograding. If 
he is retrograding here, he will continue on the other side, 
till he reaches, in the lapse of ages, perhaps, a state of 
unconsciousness in which he is re-incarnated in some other 
form. 

Life is like the revolutions of a wheel; or as the succes- 
sion of the seasons ; or as day and night. There is no such 
thing as existence without change; and change is alterna- 
tion, as a rising up and a falling down; though in cycles 
both vast and small. Repugnant as these ideas may be to 
modern taste, they are certainly based in logic; and if age 
gives any prestige to anything, this must take the precedent, 
for the transmigration of the soul is the oldest religion 
known to man. 

Upon the tombs of ancient Egypt there is sculptured in 
the rock a picture of Osiris seated on a throne, and human 
beings ascending upon a stairway to him. In front of him 
they seem to divide. Those on the right still retain the 
human form, but those on the left are animals. Further- 
more, there are more people in existence who entertain this 
belief than otherwise. If you read our Bible, you will see 
that the Jews believed in it; and Jesus also. (Mark ix, 
11, 12, 13.) Also see Matthew xvii, 10, 11, 12, 13, and 
xvi, 13, 14; also xiv, 2, 3. 

Now for the logic of it : An eternal existence, based upon 
the pleasure of a changeable God, is too absurd to think of, 
but all Christendom holds to such a view. A beginning 
proves an end. This we show to be an illusion of sense ; 
for a beginning is only apparently so as regards the life, 



MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 129 

while it is really so in reference to the form. You had an 
existence as an infant, but no recollection of it. You also 
existed in utero, but the mode of that existence was alto- 
gether different from life since your birth. You also had 
an existence as a spermatozoa, and swam around in a drop 
of semen as a whale does in the ocean, and fought with and 
destroyed other spermatozoa weaker than yourself. It took 
a microscope to see you then, but you were a conscious, liv- 
ing being, having the power of volition. 

Beyond this, science cannot follow you. But we can 
reasonably believe that you existed in an unconscious state 
in your father's veins; and who can know you were not con- 
scious even then ? Shall we assume to deny it, because, in 
our ignorance, we are unable to find you ? Is not the air 
full of infinitesimal life, that we know nothing of ? We 
know that you, as a spermatozoa, died in the womb before 
you became a child. Who knows that you had not just 
died before you became a spermatozoa ? And who knows 
but that you might have been butchered, as a lamb, a little 
while before ? 

What is all this life for which swarms in the air, and 
walks upon the land, or swims in the sea ? Was it created 
as a mere pastime for man's benefit ? Or, is it not more 
reasonable to think that it is all rushing upward towards 
perfection ? — the fittest going up and the unfit going down. 
Darwin shows the law of "Natural Selection." Man ! proud 
and haughty egotist that thou art, Nature thinks as much 
of a mosquito as she does of you ! You gestate in water 
the same, and go out of life in like manner as a mosquito 
does. But you make a greater fuss about it. Arrogate 
nothing to yourself because you are a little higher than the 
poor, patient, dumb brute you drive. Treat them kindly, 
for you know not how soon they may become human, and 
pay you in your own coin for your brutality. 



L30 MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 

"Thou shalt not kill," was written upon Mount Sinai by 
one who know what he was about. The Eahats of Buddhism 
are not allowed to knowingly tread upon a worm, or to 
take any life whatever. We are all related, and anon change 
places with each other in the revolutions of the great wheel 
of Infinite Power. "We know not the effects of violence 
and bloodshed upon ourselves and others. 

Note the changes of form and feature from infancy to 
old age, and see how many times the Identity is lost in a 
few short years — lost to all save yourself and those in con- 
stant association. The slowness of the change makes no 
difference in fact. How often it is said of one returned 
after an absence of a few years, "Why, how you have 
changed ! I hardly know you !" Think you those changes 
will cease at death ? I do not. 

It is the desire of every man who believes in immortality, 
to retain consciousness and identity. W 7 e are rather in 
hopes that we will lose some traits — those which we despise ; 
but we would scarcely desire to be something else after 
death, unless we could be more God-like. This much- 
talked-of identity is but little understood. I am not the 
same person I was forty years ago, no more than one wave 
on the ocean remains the same till it is beaten upon the 
shore. As wave flows into wave, so life passes into forms 
of matter. A ripple here and a wave there ; a tempest here 
and a calm there. Such is life ! The great wave sinks into 
the small one, or rises into the large one ; but whether great 
or small, the calm levels all 

The soul has power to identify itself according to its 
consciousness of what it has been. It identifies itself in 
many ways, by looks, acts, or by the narration of incidents 
fresh in the memory of both. But if memory is lost, and 
the form has changed, what good is there in identification, 
even were it possible *? which it is not. I feel that I am the 



MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 131 

same being I formerly was, because I remember the long 
ago — there has been one continuous chain of events that 
have gradually borne me along — there has been no great 
shock or disconnection of the current ; but a shock some- 
times interrupts the continuity of things. Especially is this 
true in regard to memory. The most valuable things are 
the easiest disturbed and destroyed — as we understand de- 
struction. 

How weak, and yet how subtile and strong is memory ! 
The past, with its multitudinous experiences, sights, acts, 
sounds, etc., fails to keep along with us. They drop out 
by the way, as one wearied falls down to rest, and we look 
around at the end of the journey for the companions of the 
way, and are surprised at the smallness of the number we 
see. And even those that keep the closest to us, are the 
hideous ones we would most gladly have left behind. Per- 
haps we have taken extra pains to outrun or to evade some 
of them — but memory drags them along with almost super- 
natural power. 

The greater part of our life is made up of indifferent acts 
of which we take no note, and which make little or no im- 
pression on memory's page, but the great events stamp 
themselves ineffaceably upon the soul. Memory being, then, 
the means whereby existence continues in the conscious- 
ness, its culture becomes of paramount importance, as re- 
gards identification. Memory is the soul of genius. We 
do not know but that the thoughts of the mind are half 
forgotten memories of previous existences ! And Intuition 
may be but a perception of the past and future, in which 
we have always been as now. Our past lives are as a half 
forgotten dream. Some little thing calls it up, as from the 
deep, more or less vividly to our consciousness. 

There are some things which destroy memory ; so, also, 
there is a way of cultivating or of increasing its power. 



132 MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 

The opening of the mind to what lias been is culture of 
memory : the closing of the mind to that which has been 
is the decay and loss of memory. 

Memory is the outward or material part of consciousness, 
as the body is the outward of mind. Hence, to increase in 
consciousness and soul-power is to expand the memory or 
the inmost of mind — the sensorium. Action is expansive, 
but inaction is contractive. 

Bear in mind, now, that by action I do not mean physical 
or mental action, but soul action. The soul is the principle 
of all existence, and is the cause of all action ; but its first 
action is the evolution of a principle which is the governing 
motive or power of every act. The motive is the life of an 
act. Motives are dual — good and bad. The absence of a 
good motive leaves the act deficient of its life or expansive 
power. Hence, the absence of good is the evil, which is 
contractive. The absence of strength is weakness ; of sight, 
blindness; of intelligence, ignorance, etc. That which 
increases power is good, for it leads up to God. Good is 
the only absoluteness of mind — for, as I said before, it is 
our estimate — which descending into acts related to other 
acts, becomes a relative good, i. e., partly good and partly 
evil; for it may be good for some, but evil for others. 
Good, then, which is the least harmful to others, must be 
the nearest approach to absoluteness, and thus to the 
truth. 

There comes from motives a certain quality which they 
impart to every act; and as acts are graded from low to 
high, so does quality vary. Now, the good of an act is 
meritorious, but the evil is not, and it imparts another 
quality to spirit, called Demerit. For spirit is action; and 
the motive of the act is its spirit — or the quality thereof. 

Spirit is graded from the purest white, through all grades 
of color down to the lowest black. The darker the spirit 



MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 133 

the more inert it is, for power resides in spirit according to 
its color. It is the merit of an act which gives spirit its 
purity of color, but the demerit of it saddens the color of 
spirit and thus destroys its buoyancy. Merit is the con- 
centrative power of spirit, for it draws all the colors together 
as in a focus, or prism of white light, or oneness; but 
demerit is a downward action towards matter — a scattering 
or refraction of rays — as of many from one in which colors 
appear — and power disappears in the falling of it, or in its 
diffusion. 

Principle is merit, but the absence of principle is demerit. 
Now, it is necessary to know what a principle is, in order to 
a comprehension of this recondite subject. A principle is a 
union of the two highest mental attributes into one spirit. 
Thus, Love and Will united are good, if they unite in 
truth, and they cannot unite in anything else; for that 
which is false is at variance — as a division. Truth unites, 
but falsehood dissevers. The soul of merit is the love of 
truth, and truth is freedom. Thus is merit expansive of 
the Soul's consciousness, but contractive of the mind. 
Demerit springs from a want of love of truth, and is a dis- 
union of love and will, hence, is void of principle. In dis- 
union there are differences, which lead to aggressive acts — 
or acts against freedom. 

Aggression is the soul of demerit. The object or motive 
of an act gives merit, provided the object be for the good 
of others. There is merit in all love, of whatever name or 
nature, and it is this that supports life. But there is 
demerit in hate and revenge, and all passions which confer 
no good upon self or upon others, and this it is that 
shortens life, and makes it a continual agitation, and a 
death in life. 

The expansion of consciousness is due to merit, but the 
contraction of it to demerit. In the expansion of conscious- 



134 MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 

ness the soul transcends mere mind, and one becomes con- 
scious of a truth, even without a reason for it. Thus, the 
past and future rise up in the mind in symbols, or impress 
themselves as a sensation or feeling. The spirit-worlds may 
be reached in this way without trance or objective vision. It 
i> a conscious contact of minds, things and principles. 
Consciousness meets consciousness in this expansion, and 
the conditions of any state of being may be known. It is 
a ready reader of character, motives, capacities, past and 
future events, etc., etc. But the small consciousness is con- 
fined and limited by demerit — it reaches little or nothing 
beyond itself. 

Merit is acquired by acts of love ; it sets the spirit free. 
Freedom is life and joy. I am aware that some claim there 
is no freedom of action, and consequently no merit or de- 
merit therein. But we know better. 

Xow, how, or in what manner does spirit rise or become 
luminous by merit ? The spirit has the power to extract life 
from all substance or spirit, with which it comes in contact, 
as it radiates in space from the body, and merit is that 
which increases this power of absorption or appropriation, 
while demerit destroys that power. Merit eliminates the 
tenacity or clingingness of spirit, by reason of which it is 
held to the surface of things ; thus giving it power to pen- 
etrate deeper into the inner essence or spirit of substance, 
and to extract the finer essences thereof. Merit increases 
the radius of spirit in this manner, and it feeds upon all 
things, for there is no repugnance to any. But whatever it 
may come in contact with it only takes that which is accord- 
ing to its own quality. Now, every object it meets takes 
something from the spirit ; hence, weakens it. 

Demerit increases taste and repugnance, and in this man- 
ner limits the freedom and radius of spirit, thus compelling 
it to feed upon "husks," often to its weakness and disease. 



MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 135 

He who is indifferent gets the good of all, and his spirit is 
fat. But he who likes and dislikes the most, is poor and 
lean in spirit. These are basic principles of power and 
progress. Disease originates in this manner. As the beat- 
ing of the heart throws the blood to the extremities, so does 
spirit pour out in the pulsations of will. As blood purines 
itself by contact with the air, in like manner is spirit puri- 
fied by the contact of pure things. "To the pure all things 
are pure." The more indifferent you are, the purer you 
are, for to the indifferent all things are alike — one. 

No man exists in any condition very long after he is tired 
of it. The man who is forced to exist passes rapidly out 
of one mode of existence into another, becoming less and 
less as the circles narrow to the going out. Demerit is that 
which compels us to exist — but not with a continual con- 
sciousness thereof. To increase in power, and the pleasure 
it alone can confer, requires effort in the acquisition of 
merit. Merit prepares the spirit, by giving it buoyancy 
and elasticity. 

The future life is similar to this. As we come here by 
force and go out by force, so we enter spirit-life and pass 
through it. But death is not a birth, and there is not nec- 
essarily a growth there as here. The spirit, being a mortal 
thing, is often diseased, which, of course, weakens it. The 
laws of demerit are vindictive, and all debts due under it 
must be paid, and death is the penalty of violated laws. 
Now, since the mind violates the law whereby the body be- 
comes diseased, the mind is the thing that must die. Physi- 
cal death is only typical of the real death of consciousness. 

There are things that wake not up after death, till they 
awaken in another form — mosquitoes, for instance. This is 
death followed by a birth into another form, but the form 
of man containing more spirit and greater consciousness, 
continues after death. But I am satisfied that many never 



L36 



MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 



awaken, or if they do, they remain on the earth hovering 
aromul mediums ; by this means striving to get back to 
their old habits and vices — thus sapping the spirits of mor- 
t als of vitality. Such have an ephemeral existence, and at 
last fall asleep, and are again born upon this earth. 

But there are many who lose not consciousness for a sin- 
gle moment, and who are not aware they are dead till some 
time after: to such death is not a birth into another form, 
and scarcely into another existence. It is just upon the 
confines of another existence into which the good walk 
deeper and deeper, and out of which the bad are kept by 
their own inclinations : not only in this, but in all the starry 
worlds. 

In this world, as well as in all the planet worlds of space, 
every man must stand upon his own merits, and fall by his 
own demerits. There is no such thing as the transfer of 
merit or demerit from one person to another. 

Merit may be driven wholly out of the spirit, as colors 
may be washed out of cloth. This is done by the accumu- 
lation of demerit. So, also, demerit may be driven out of 
the spirit in the same manner, by making its colors brighter 
and brighter, by the accumulation of merit. 

The reason is simple enough: Spirit is the light of the 
body — its brilliancy is determined by the merit acquired in 
some previous existence or succession of existences. The 
brilliancy of the light may be increased by improving the 
quality of the oil in the lamp as you replenish it. But no 
other light, no matter how brilliant it may be, can make 
yours one whit brighter, by being placed near by. You r can 
only change the quality of your light by effort in the acqui- 
sition of merit. A pure spirit can only impart to you as 
you render yourself receptive thereto ; and even then it can 
only give you the crumbs which fall from its table. But 



MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 137 

crumbs of spirit are better than mountains of gold, for they 
are health, power, immortality. 

Good acts have an influence upon the body in more ways 
than one. To do good, because it is easy to do so, is meri- 
torious ; but there is much more in a good act done when 
the inclination is the reverse. An act may be forced out by 
sympathy — which is good, because sympathy is a result of 
merit acquired in a previous existence — but it may not have 
much merit in it as an addition to that previously acquired. 
An act done without sympathy for the sole purpose of 
increasing good, without any hope or expectation of a 
reward, has the highest merit therein. 

A man does not act thus except from deep and profound 
meditation upon the true relationship of things. Merit is 
the substance of the celestial worlds, and he who meditates 
deeply, attaches himself thereto by the elevation of his 
spirit, and incorporates it into his spirit according to his 
acts. Thus, it becomes part and parcel of his body, driving 
out demerit. 

In like manner could all diseases be healed, were it not 
for the demerit of former existences. Demerit must be 
worked out patiently and slowly. In some cases it takes 
numerous births in the human form, attended with a con- 
stant effort, with the object — to get rid of the succession of 
existence where there is nothing but an alternation of plea- 
sure and pain constantly before the mind, and an idea to 
enter upon a state of being altogether out of all compre- 
hension. " He that would save his life shall lose it, and he 
that would lose his life for my sake (the sake of principle) 
shall save it." — Jesus. To teach the way upward is the 
object of this book. 

Principle is the magnet which holds the man steadily to 
the polar star of power. Mercy is full of merit, if forgive- 
ness comes from the motive to do good. They that do 



188 MIGRATION A.ND TRANSMIGRATION. 

good because it is easy and natural, have their reward as 
they go along. But he who does good contrary to his 
nature, through a mastery of himself, lays up great merit 
in store for a future life — verily his reward shall be 
great. 

To feed the hungry through pity is good, but to feed 
them with the reflection that by so doing you will help them 
in the acquisition of merit is far better. It is better to do 
kindly acts and say kind words without feeling, than to feel 
and not say or do. Both are good, but one is greater than 
the other. A small meritorious act may elevate one to the 
seventh heaven — but he cannot stay there, for when his oil 
is burned out he must return for more. He will return of 
his own accord, for he will be in darkness without merit. 

This earth is the only place wherein merit can be 
acquired. A little merit will carry a big load of demerit 
into heaven, but it cannot remain for want of buoyancy. 
Every act we do, every thought we think, and every word 
uttered, affects some one else, and we do not know the 
extent of its influence. Hence, all creation is bound 
together in the bonds of sympathy. This is a result of 
demerit. The Heavens are fast anchored to the Hells, 
and there can be no perfect bliss so long as one poor soul 
suffers. A chain is not stronger than its weakest link. 

Xo one can escape the meshes of sympathy without 
cutting all its chords. Is this done by love, think you ? 
Nay ! but by indifference. The love of principle is indiffer- 
ence towards objects. This is the first and greatest com- 
mandment — to love principle ! The next is, love all things 
as you do yourself. This is indifference ; for when one 
loves a principle with all the intensity of his being, he has 
no self-love nor love of anything on God's green earth. 
Now the only principle in existence is Freedom. Neither 
Power, nor God, nor Spirit are possible without freedom. 
Look you at the host of martyrs for Freedom ! They loved 



MIGRATION AND TRANSMIGRATION. 139 

principle better than self, wife, children or friends — they 
were swallowed up in the love of God's freedom ! This is 
indifference to things. Indifference is "the door" through 
which merit descends to man, and through which souls 
ascend to God. 

We are all sunk in a psychologic sleep — the falling into 
which was effected by sympathy. Those to whom this life 
is the most real, are in its deepest phase. They cannot 
perceive the illusion of it, nor the ineffable glory of 
awakening out of it, and the becoming a spectator of one's 
own self and of others. This becoming a spectator is the 
stepping out of the illusion, as out of one's self in which 
state things are visible in spirit only, or as another exist- 
ence. It is like a peering under the floors of conscious life, 
as into a great darkness, wherein things become less and 
less distinct; or as a passing through a wall of darkness 
into a great and indescribable light, and, looking back, 
behold things as luminous — involved in will, psychologiz- 
ing each other; in which sleep they dance with pleasure or 
howl and writhe in anguish, as if in fire. 

Occasionally one gets tired, and seats himself in some 
obscure corner to look on. The gods seeing him thus 
meditative, drop down into the mists of sympathy, thus 
approaching him in condition, rack his thought and increase 
his weariness to dissatisfaction and a great unrest — or t3 
hunger and thirst after something permanent and real. 

Have you, too, reader, become wearied of illusory joys, 
that slip through your fingers in the grasping, as a phantom 
eludes mortal touch? Become indifferent, then, to the love 
of life, and gradually the pain and pleasure of it will pass 
out of your recognition. Follow me in the culture of Will, 
and learn the way to "the door." Space will not permit 
me to dwell upon this theme, prolific as it is. Volumes 
might be written, and still the darkness could no more com- 
prehend the light now than in the olden time. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

THE WILL. 

"Men fail, sicken and die, through feebleness of will.' 7 
All the potencies of man reside in the will. To its exercise 
is due all motions — physical, mental and spiritual. Will is 
God, and " God is a Spirit." Therefore, the will employed 
in an act is the spirit thereof, or the motive, or moving 
force. Man is the focus of above and below — of without 
and within. Hence he is susceptible to influences from 
each. That some are more open to impressions from within 
than others, is evident ; and the same is true as regards 
externals. 

The will is liable to be led captive and enslaved by either 
— aye, to be subjugated and destroyed ! But there is a point 
where the will is self-poised and free in its action. As the 
will is the spirit of every act, it gives quality to acts. There 
seems to be a warfare between externals and internals, as to 
the possession of the will. How oft do we see it verified, 
that "A man convinced against his will, is of the same 
opinion still." We act as we like to act — we think as we 
like to think. We can see very plainly that which we like 
to see, and shut our eyes very closely against that which we 
do not like. Evidence has but a feeble effect upon the will. 

Evil comes from without — or, rather, from that which is 
within being overpowered and captivated by that which is 
without, or foreign to ourselves ; while the good comes 
from within, or by the subjection of the outer by the inner. 



THE WILL. 141 

The objectifying of that winch is within is idolatry. The 
subjectifying of objects is the destruction of forms, and the 
resolving of things back to the original essence or oneness 
from which they spring. This is the digestion of things in 
the stomach of the mind, wherein the fire is extracted which 
illuminates the spirit, and is the greatest good to man, for 
it opens the eyes of the soul ; it glows as a light ; it warms 
as fire ; it nourishes as food ; gives rest and cheerfulness of 
mind ; enriches the blood ; purifies the love, and fortifies 
the soul. 

That which is without is transient, fleeting, changing and 
impermanent ; but that which is within is durable ; and the 
deepest hidden is the most durable of all. 

The will is the only thing that approximates absolute 
freedom, and this is not free because of love. Love is wor- 
ship, and they who love objects are idolaters. "We are free 
to will anything w r e may fancy, but we are not free to love 
or accomplish, because we are limited by things foreign to 
ourselves, v/hich we love or hate, or are indifferent to. 

Love is worship, but hate is its reflection, as things tangi- 
ble are a reflection of the intangible. Polytheism and Poly- 
gamy are branches of the same tree. In the true rendering 
they mean the same thing. Polygamy was permitted to the 
Jews on account of "the hardness of their hearts."* 

The love of God is the love of Woman — not Wo-Men. 
But he who loves any form is an idolater — the formless 
principle of production is the feminine of God. 

It is very difiicult to understand the foregoing, save in 
a sinister light, which is a false light. True love is so far 
hidden from even the imaginations of men, that an effort to 
make it known is almost superfluous. That love which is 

* In the Bible Idolatry or Polytheism is called "whoring after 
strange Gods. " 



1 12 THE WILL. 

awakened by sight or contact of objects is the dark side — 
the sinister side — of love. Hence the reality is not love ; 
it is simply an appearance. But the love that springs from 
the contemplation of a principle is unchangeable, if it be a 
true principle, for it springs from light which is real, as 
God is real. As God is light, so the will is light ; and the 
love that is produced by will is immortal, because it is pure. 

That which springs spontaneously from the earth is the 
weed, bramble and fruit, which man tries to improve. So it 
is with the loves. That which springs from impulse is con- 
sidered by civilization as a thing needing punishment. We 
believe in cool, calm judgment and self-control, as better 
than spontaneity. This coolness and self-poise comes from 
the exercise of will. All civilization is due to self-control. 
It follows, then, as a logical sequence, that if it is possible 
for man to guide and control his loves, it is far better than 
for him to be led by his blind passions. 

Furthermore, if it be possible to create love by any pro- 
cess whatever, it is far better than otherwise. Hence the 
command to love, not only one another, but our enemies. 
Such a command is altogether superfluous, if it is not pos- 
sible to do so. We know how to destroy and disfigure the 
fair face of nature ; we know how to destroy health and 
happiness, life and pleasure ; but we know very little of the 
creative forces. We know what it is to have the heart beat 
quick and tumultuous at the sight of beauty, or at the gen- 
tle pressure of the hand, or at the bewitching glance of 
love-lit eyes ; but we know nothing absolutely of a power 
to feel anything but disgust at a loathsome object. Yet it 
is within the range of human possibilities to love that which 
to ordinary minds is repulsive — in fact, to love all and des- 
pise nothing. It is the despising of things that separates 
us from God or the Supernatural. 

The first lesson in life is the exercise of Will. We learn 



THE WILL. 143 

to use the muscles, but mental effort precedes it. The first 
effort is a projection of power into the nerves, which tremble 
and go astray of the object the infant tries hard to grasp; 
but with practice the nerves become steady, and the infant 
learns gradually to manipulate matter — first, in its own 
body; secondly, outside of itself. This power comes to 
the infant out of nothing, as it were, as characters written 
upon a blank page — nothing — called out into this world of 
sense by a display of trinkets, colors, sonnets and toys, to be 
a something manifesting power, force and will. 

The basic principle of all power and of all development is 
the will. It is all. Every faculty of the mind, every nerve of 
the body, centres in it. It is the trunk of the tree of life : all 
else of man are outgrowths of it. Hence the development 
of manhood begins and ends in the will. It is the centre - 
stance of being, from which " the rib" of circumstances was 
taken (or grew), as Eve from Adam. Will is the first mani- 
festation of soul, or the first faculty it creates for its 
use. 

The will is the great pulsating heart of the Soul — the 
reservoir of the spirit — which, in its contraction, throws 
the spirit from itself, and in its opening draws it back again. 
In the supernatural, the will produces, guides and controls 
the loves, but in the natural (so-called^ the loves control 
and guide the will. 

Naturally, love is a spontaneous emotion, produced by an 
object of attraction, leading the will captive. But super - 
naturally love is an emotion forced out by constant, per- 
sistent thought of an Ideal, which Ideal is the feminine 
counterpart of the man, dwelling within him, united to him, 
absolutely inseparable from him. But he cannot have this 
Ideal in his consciousness, till, in the purity of his spirit, 
he rises up to its conception mentally. This is a revelation 
to him, sometimes in early life, but often in age, forced out 



144 THE WILL. 

by unrequited love, and the burning anguish of dead joys. 
Thus, man becomes dual in his nature first, afterwards in 
actual marriage with his Ideal, or love. 

This Ideal is seldom incarnated on this earth, at the same 
time the man is; if it ever does so happen, no condition can 
keep them apart "When they meet, they intuitively know 
each other. This is marriage in its divine significance. 
Man and woman thus united by the " Holy Spirit" is 
eternal — but considered separately they are not eternal 
entities, but are interchangeable, i. e., man is liable to 
become a woman, and woman is liable to become a man 
in some other birth. 

The man hater and the woman hater change places after 
two or three revolutions of the wheel of life. Human pro- 
gress depends, then, upon will-culture — and the field to be 
cultivated is the loves, in which and from which all things 
grow. The will viewed as a mental faculty has its antago- 
nist, which is EEVEEEXCE. 

Once upon a time when intensely musing upon the 
antagonisms of the brain, I fell asleep — but it was not all 
sleep — when some one came to me, as ' ; the stranger' came 
with the mirror. I did not see him, but he showed me a 
book. Opening it, he showed me this strange sentence: 
"The will is antagonized by reverence! In the foretime 
the Gods, out of fear of man's ambition, created reverence." 
I desired to take the book, but he would not permit me, 
but showed me many blank pages therein, saying: " not 
now." It was several years before I could accept the 
strange dogma. But it is true. 

We are taught that the will must be broken in early 
childhood, and in order to the salvation of the soul. The 
opposite is the truth. God does not love slaves nor cowards, 
and the child whose will is broken is of no earthly 
account. 



THE WILL. 145 

The loves must be tamed — broken, if necessary, by the 
will — guided by an enlightened understanding. All will 
is pure power, and should be increased instead of being 
broken. In meditation there is strength, but in reverence 
there is weakness — a tacit acknowledgment of a superior. 
There is a god! nay, many, but if they are superior to you 
it is your own fault. You may have been a god yourself at 
some time, and you may be again with proper effort. That 
proper effort is not in humiliation. 

The will is represented in the mind as triune, having 
three faculties through which it manifests itself, as 
follows : 

I. Firmness — Determination — Stability. 
II. Self-esteem — Independence — Self poise. 
III. Continuity — Tenacity — Continuativeness. 

A proper balance and harmony of these three constitute 
a perfect will. The weakness or excessive development of 
either one weakens the will. As intimated above, an 
enlightened understanding is the only true guide for the 
will. This enlightenment is illumination of the mind — 
clairvoyance. There are many degrees of lucidity, but the 
highest degree is the perception of principles — of " princi- 
palities and powers." 

The inmost and the outermost of being is connected by 
the imagination. It stands between the will and the loves; 
hence, all the operations of the will must be through the 
imagination. It is the " magic mirror" of the mind, through 
which the soul scans the horizon, or upon which the universe 
may be made to impinge — not in vague and shadowy forms, 
many-colored or kaleidoscopic, but in reality, either black 
or white. It is prolific; for herefrom comes all of &rt, 
science, literature and beauty, as well as the horrible, 
grotesque and sinister. 

Crimes are brooded over and hatched here in the imagina- 



L46 THE WILL. 

tion. In this fairy -land is death enthroned, for that which 
is born is the death of something else. This is magic 
ground from which things grow by the conjuring of the 
will. Here things dissolve themselves and expose their 
deformities; and here hideous things are enrobed in garbs 
angelic Here religion has its stronghold — for in this the 
gods show themselves to man. Maligned, abused, scoffed 
at, the jeer and laughter-provoking thing yet rules the 
world. Disrobe man of the imagination and what is he ? 
A brute — worse than savage. His very flesh covers itself 
with hair, as if to hide its coarseness and vulgarity. 

But let the imagination loose, and the hair grows soft 
and fine, or disappears. The flesh glows with fires immor- 
tal ; the eye loses its savage glare, and man's robes are of 
the finest texture. The earth, under its rule, is no longer a 
howling wilderness, but is dotted all over with fairy-like 
splendors — its magic productions. Steam almost annihilates 
space, and the lightnings flash thought from pole to pole 
ahead of old time. This is all due to the dreamings of the 
imagination. 

On the shores of eternity's ocean are greater things 
waiting for some dreamer to espie and hand down to enrich 
mankind. All hail to the dreamers, poets, philosophers, 
preachers, writers and inventors ! They have always left 
their mark and always will, as an ineffaceable brand upon 
the face of humanity. Trust, aspiration and hope have 
their very roots in the imagination. It is only by virtue of 
it that the good side of humanity in general can be 
discerned. 

The unimaginative are the doubtful, unbelieving and dis- 
trustful. Have they ever built anything desirable ? or ever 
added anything of value to mankind ? Thomas Paine was 
not an unbeliever. He believed in God and humanity, and 
he left his mark npon this people that will be known and 



THE WILL. 



147 



felt for long ages. He loved a principle, i. e., human lib- 
erty, and worked to establish it. Paine was a dreamer. In 
his imagination he saw equal rights, and if he lived in this 
age he would see woman's rights. 

Theories lead the van — practice comes slowly along, like 
a lumbering wagon, afterwards. The imagination is an 
infinite field. There are many roads in it, and many jungles 
and angles. All the loves centre here where they impinge 
upon the will. 

"And God saw that the imaginings of man's heart was 
continually evil," i. e., outward. Oh! that I might impress 
upon you the vast importance of looking within ! May not 
this be the closet into which Christ bade his disciples retire 
in prayer ? What is contemplation but imagination ? What 
is prayer but the aspirations of the soul ? And what are 
aspirations but images of the soul. How can we " pluck 
the mote out of our own eyes " in any other way than by 
looking within ? This plucking out of the mote is nothing 
but the development of clairvoyance — clear seeing. That 
is done by the imagination. 

"If thine hand offend thee, cut it off," etc. — what is this 
but the analysis and destruction of passions that retard and 
hinder the development of the soul to the kingdom of power ? 
If diseases are ever healed by the imagination, is it not a 
divine gift — better far than medicine ? and is it not best to 
cultivate it ? If it will heal the sick ; if it will make life 
any more pleasant, for God's sake let us have more of it. 

Three essential elements constitute perfect man, viz : Will, 
Imagination and Love. These are the positive, negative and 
neutral. Imagination is the indifferent part of mind, cor- 
responding to indifferent nature — "the door," already 
explained in previous chapters. It is the "Garden of Eden " 
out of which man was cast. The same tree of life is there 
still, guarded by a flaming sword which turns every way. 



1 18 THE WILL. 

What more beautiful type of lire than a " flaming sword ?" 
Fire-flame, that guards the way to the tree of life — consum- 
ing all impure things that approach the dread portals of the 
kingdom of power. The pure only are eternal. Purity is 
original — this is unchangeable. All originality comes to 
man through reverie: this is imagination. Man reaches 
God in the imagination. In it God walks and talks with 
man. It is the creative faculty — not in and of itself, but 
herein the will conjures things from the unknown, and com- 
pels them to appear to the consciousness — first, of himself ; 
secondly, of others. 

In the imagination, things, ideas, passions, hatreds, loves, 
vices, etc., may be destroyed — first, as realities within ; sec- 
ondly, as obstacles outside of us. For instance, an enemy 
may be made sick, and gradually to die, or he may be sud- 
denly killed, by the powerful will of an intensely imagina- 
tive man or woman. Or he may be tamed, subdued, and 
made a friend of through and by the same power. God 
pity the one who would prostitute such a power to a base 
or unworthy purpose ! 

This is hard to believe, but the rationale is very simple to 
one of comprehension. But it is not my object to teach 
these things in this work, only so far as to point the road. 

There is little power among men on account of the want 
of will. There is plenty of obstinacy and unreasoning ten- 
acity of purpose. This is due to firmness, which is the 
projecting or repulsive power of will. By the use of it we 
project ourselves — first, into the nerves and muscles ; sec- 
ondly, into objects — obstacles that stand in our way. Its 
work is outwardly. We waste our strength and lose our- 
selves in objects of love, hate, envy and pride. In this 
projection we leave ourselves empty. Emptiness, like filth, 
invites disease and death. Projection — repulsion — produces 



THE WILL. 149 

death. {There is a sexual arcana here: let him who reads 
ponder well.) We die that others may have being. 

Firmness is what its name implies — hardness. " Firm as 
the rocks" expresses its real character. It hardens the 
nerves, muscles and very bones, and also affects the spirit 
in the same way, rendering it viscid and difficult of motion. 
That which should be tike emitted is but a glutinous mass 
of molten matter. Instead of emitting jets of fire, flame- 
tipped, that reach the soul — the empyrean — the throne of 
the living God — baptizing each other with fire and " the 
Holy Ghost," cheering, comforting, exhilarating with divine 
life and vigor — drawing human souls together in the one- 
ness of a divine love — we emit a force that is like water 
upon fire — destructive to all real life and happiness — repels 
man from man, and man from woman, in one universal 
divorce. Instead of the controlling, persuasive, binding 
power of will, we have the booming cannon, the dagger and 
revolver, and the rough-and-tumble fight of dogs. 

The "still, small voice" of wisdom is drowned in the 
deafening roar of countless blood-stained feet, hastening to 
tread out the wine of human life. In our great marts of 
commerce, hearts have no more pulsation than the metal 
that chinks. Firmness — the external of will — hardens 
everything ! Even human hearts rattle like rocks thrown 
together. 

Suppose love to be the only immortal thing: how much 
will be left of mankind after the fire has removed the 
impurities of it ? Not much ! Then roll on your Juggernaut 
of mammon. Shout and hurrah' for kings, priests, popes, 
bishops, honorables and aristocrats of every grade — your 
gods. Dress yourselves in your gaudy shrouds for one 
universal burial. Marshal your hosts for the grand carnival 
of death : for what matters the blood of ephemera ? Ye pass 
away like insects! Another race is coming — one in whom 



150 THE WILL. 

this outward tumult of a boisterous will shall give place to 
silence and peace, and man shall live till he chooses to 
die. 

In this reverence — this antagonist of will — all thrones 
and crowns take root. King-craft, priest-craft and hero- 
worship must fall together. This vampire trinity fattens 
upon the best blood of humanity. It makes slaves and 
minions of the masses. No w r onder they all love and preach 
worship — it is food, raiment and idleness for them, and toil 
and rags for the human race. It debases mankind, because 
it robs them of self-respect — the central pivot of the will. 
The idea that you are beneath another cripples you. 

Selfness is nearest the soul — it is the very vitals of will. 
Confidence in self inspires self-respect. To take away 
either is like taking off a leg — we must walk on crutches. 
To feel inferior is to be so. To feel equal is to grow to be 
such. The proud and arrogant interiorly feel their weak- 
ness, and hence arrogate to themselves something foreign, 
so as to inspire worship in others. 

The antagonist of self-esteem is love of approbation. 
This love of the approval of others is one branch of rever- 
ence. To be praised and nattered by a king is something 
grand, and to be coveted. Humble yourself in the dust for 
a smile of approval from one crowned. To secure the 
approval of heaven, humble and debase yourself. In other 
words, act the hypocrite, pretend humility to superiors, but 
to those beneath you be lord, king, duke or God. Such is 
the effect of modern theological teachings. 

Self-esteem normally gives the feeling of self-reliance, 
confidence and independence. It gives rise to manly equality 
and self-poise. It is the balance-wheel, the regulator, the 
pivot upon which manhood, like a compass, rests. 

Self is antagonized by others ; hence, lie who gives him- 
self up to please others, gives himself to his antagonist — 



THE WILL. 151 

viz: that which ruins him by throwing him out of balance. 
Be yourself ; think yourself ; learn of everything and of 
everybody ; be worthy of your own self-respect : for when 
you have secured that, the respect of others is certain. Be 
independent, but, in so doing, remember the rights of oth- 
ers. Rights are equal ; wrongs make inequalities. If you 
have any selfhood, consult that first of all. Secure in self- 
respect, you need not fear others, for God approves of self- 
honor. This is the only glory, and the only way to glorify 
God. 

Praise is a false wind — it blows no good. Fame ! — what 
is it but a breath, shouting huzzas which, prolonged, die 
away in a hiss ? Breath of the rabble ! the unthinking 
herd ! One minute exalting you to heaven, the next tramp- 
ling you in filth. And yet it is said God loves praise. The 
absurdity is too apparent. We cannot add anything to the 
Infinite. We can, however, join ourselves to the Infinite, 
and we are glorified thereby. This it is to " glokify God 
in these bodies, which are His " — or ours in the glorifying. 
Thus we increase the selfhood — the foundation of all 
power — will. 

Inordinate self-esteem may have no self-respect at all. 
Self-respect is based in right, truth and justice. Hence, he 
who respects others and their rights, has self-respect. He 
who has no regard for the rights of others, although he may 
possess a powerful external will, has a weak will interiorly. 
He is like a tree with a large top, but whose trunk is rotten. 
Respect is the very foundation of love ; hence, self-respect 
leads to self-love or egotism. This is an excessive growth 
from a fruitful soil. Such need pruning. 

The will, like everything else in nature, grows outwardly 
to the weakening of its roots. Egotism is the fatal tendency 
of all aspirations. It is a weakness that must be guarded 
against Self- approbation springs from the same source as 



K9 



THE WILL. 



love of the approval of others — viz: reverence. There is 
such a thing as self-worship. Egotism is to the will what 
the moss is io trees in "the sunny South" — it dwarfs and 
finally kills. Strip man of pretense and egotism (which is 
the same) and what is there left of him ? He who is puffed 
up and loaded with self-complacency and pride is rotten 
within. 

Self-gratification is the root of human action. As we 
grow we send out many branches, but self-gratification sup- 
ports them all. No matter what pursuit we follow, or what 
course in life we pursue, that is the prime motive power. 
The will is made a slave to it. It is the fundamental prin- 
ciple of all religious systems. The so-called kingdom of 
heaven is based in it, and hell is filled with the devotees of 
self- gratification. Even Buddhism, which claims that there 
is no self or Ego in reality, holds out the inducement to its 
votaries of escaping to Nirwana, from the ceaseless and 
eternal succession of existences. To this end the senses 
are attacked, and bodily or physical and mental gratification 
destroyed — in order to arrive at the gates of ecstacy and 
power — in order to cease to be* 

So, self is the basis of all, and the only god. Pleasure is 
the object of all, no matter what road is taken. Even the 
materialist finds his pleasure in the quiescence and the 
quintescence of matter. Men get religion through fear of 
the pains of hell, and in hope of the pleasures of heaven. 
The Hindoo mother tosses her babe into the murky waters 
of the Ganges to appease the wrath of her gods — in hopes 
of a reward. The Fakir of India puts a hook in the quiv- 
ering flesh of his back and suspends himself for days in 

* This is the exoteric of Buddhism ; the esoteric has never been 
written. Hardy translates their sacred books, but frankly admits 
that if Nirwana does not mean annihilation, he does not know what 
its meaning is. 



THE WILL. 153 

mid- air, or stands with hands clasped, in one position, till 
the limbs are paralyzed, and the finger-nails grow through 
the palms of the hands, like claws — all in hope of power 
and pleasure other than that of the earthly senses. 

Some seek the ultimate of life in the carnival of carnal 
passions, others in mammon worship, others in Government 
positions, politics, etc. Is all this universal hunger and 
thirst — this deathless longing — a mere hallucination ? or, is 
it the index finger of Fate pointing to a great truth ? Is self 
capable of becoming infinite in power and pleasure — in this 
universal changing of conditions and polarities ? We of 
the old school of thought say, Yes. 

Of all the potencies of nature, the I, the Ego, the self, is 
the only thing beyond comprehension that has a positive 
and tangible existence. All things else are mere appendages 
of it. I speak of my soul, mind, spirit and body as of my 
coat, or any other property. But when I speak of myself — 
of "the think" and "the feel," — I am at a loss for a defini- 
tion. To go behind, beyond, above or below myself is im- 
possible. I confront myself at every turn. It is as easy to 
comprehend God as myself, for the simple reason that I and 
the numeral one (1), are identically the same. 

One (1) is the foundation of mathematics, from which all 
numerals flow forth (arbitrarily and absurdly). In the be- 
ginning was one (1) God, one law, one will. From will 
came many ones by emission, or emanation. One thing 
cannot be added to another, save by fusion, and even then 
numbers disappear in the universal one. Add one grain of 
corn to another ; true, the figure 2 represents the number, 
for convenience, but the addition is arbitrary — there they 
remain, separate and alone, each an individual thing. In 
nature there is no addition. 

Fusion and emanation are the only mathematical laws. 
Division is as arbitrary as addition. Divide a grain of corn 



154 THE AVILL. 

and it loses its individuality. Plant the grain and it emits 
from itself whole ship-loads, but it loses itself in so doing. 
Now God emanated from Himself all things, which, in the 
beginning, were as like Him as one thing can be like 
another. Perfect man was the first emanation. He existed 
long before this world or any of the lower orders had an 
existence. He (man) was all in himself — i. e., he was the 
first or great primal law of creation. Laws are modes of 
action : man is an action of God or will. From man's will 
flowed all lesser laws or things. 

The Ego, the I, myself, is an emanation of God — a crea- 
tiye action — the first and the last and the whole— (1). The 
lower orders are man's creations — degenerated human 
beings, lesser things, laws or acts. The sage of Genesis 
simply got the cart before the horse when he said the ani- 
mals were created before man. Afterwards, however, he 
rectifies the mistake partly, when he speaks of the "Sons of 
God" marrying the daughters of men. These " Sons of 
God " were the primitive men, of w T hich I have spoken. 

I am the creator of all my acts — they are laws. They 
flow out through effort of will — being projections of the 
Ego — myself. Thus God meets man — is man — in the self- 
hood. The selfhood is God humanized. The selfhood of 
animals is God brutalized. We can understand how it is 
possible for man to produce that which is inferior to him- 
self, but it is more difficult to conceive of his creating any- 
thing superior. How can the animal evolve man, who is 
superior in every essential ? How can man progress unless 
there is something above him to which he is near related ? 
This relation is found in the selfhood — the central pivot of 
will. 

Be very careful, then, reader, how you trifle with your- 
self. Every thought and act which debases you, i. e., sinks 
you in your own inner consciousness, that which you wish 



THE WILL. 155 

to hide away in some dark corner of yourself — away from 
the eye of even yourself — debases God. The day comes 
speedily when he will sit in judgment upon your every 
thought and act — and that upon the throne of your own 
conscious selfhood. Firmness is the moving force or con- 
trolling power of this outward sensuous life — the power of 
aggression, of overcoming obstacles by physical force. It 
is the masculine of will. 

Self is neutral — hermaphrodite — neither masculine nor 
feminine. The feminine of will is represented by continuity. 
Self-esteem, phrenologically, is located just above the crown 
of the head; firmness, a little in front or above it, at the 
highest point of the cranium; while continuity is just below 
self-esteem — inferior in position and diminutive in size, 
situated just above the social group, as a mother keeping 
guard over her children. 

Understand, that the will is a trinity. One part does 
not act without the co-operation of the others; they are 
inseparable. For the sake of illustration and analysis, 
and to make comprehensible that which follows under the 
head of will- culture, and to show the rationale — or the 
modus operandi — of creative power, these distinctions are 
made. 

The feminine is the attractive, and hence, the productive 
principle of nature — that principle which collects matter 
and combines it into forms. The principal office of continuity 
is the drawing of the spirit together — to a focus — prepara- 
tory to projection. There is always a concentration of force 
or energy in all effort, and the greater the concentration the 
greater will be the power manifested. 

The tension of the nerves and muscles is due to con- 
tinuity — oneness of force and energy. It lays hold, as 
with hands, of each mental fibre, and guides the fiery steeds 
of spirit. Spirit obeys mind, but mind is under the will. 



156 THE WILL. 

Continuity is Lntonseness continuativeness. Once directed 
to an object, it fastens itself to the spirit thereof, and, 
leech-like, sucks its very life out. If continuity be large, 
one becomes absorbed in any pursuit, object or passion, to 
the forgetfulness of other things. It cannot let go. This 
leads to insanity, which is simply the unbalancing of the 
will. 

Consciousness is a result of the poising or posing of the 
will: hence the polarization of the will is the true work of 
him who aspires to infinite conscious power. The will 
oscillates, similar to the needle of a compass, or the balance- 
wheel of a watch, or as a beam very nicely poised. Too 
much attraction in any given direction, or too much weight 
at one end of the scale, causes change of polarities, which 
is a change in the conscious life of thought, memory, feel- 
ing or sensation. "When this change is extreme, the being 
is changed, the memory is lost, or judgment is dethroned, 
and yet the form of the being remains apparently the 
same; but the man himself has vacated his throne and 
become a servant of some other power greater than he. 

In view of this philosophical truth, we claim that there 
is no real sanity on this earth, and very little of it in spirit- 
life, beneath the abode of the gods. There are no perfect 
wills. Either firmness, continuity or self-esteem are too 
weak or too strong for proper balance and harmony. In 
this mundane sphere the masculine weighs down the 
feminine, and, worse even than all that, the central diamond 
of the soul — selfhood — is marred and corroded till there is 
no perfect oscillation or movement. 

"We have moved, like a wagon, so long in one rut that it 
is almost impossible to get out of it. "We have looked so 
long at the black side of God's sign-board — nature — that it 
has become luminous to us ; and at the white side — spirit — 
so little that it has lost its lustre and is forgotten, or, sup- 



THE WILL. 



157 



posed at most to be the night of nothingness. This is 
insanity. A man may be insane in whole or in part: in 
either case, the will, becoming unbalanced, has lost control 
in whole or in part. It has lost its grasp. The reversal of 
the poles of the will is why we have no memory of previous 
states of existence. The will, by chance, accident, sickness, 
or by intent, may oscillate back to the point it occupied in 
some former age, or previous state of being, and the person 
be exactly what he was spiritually at that time, and lose all 
memory of this life 

A psychologized person may be made to feel and act like 
a dog, while under the influence. Why ? Just because his 
will is thrown out of balance, and he is what we call, in 
other circumstances, insane. It is just such effects that we 
call insanity. In all similar cases of insanity where the 
psychologist is not seen or known, it is the spirit of some 
one unknown, either mortal or a spirit. At such times we 
say he is insane. The consciousness of being remains, but 
memory — the bridge over the chasms of time — is broken 
down, but not totally destroyed. It may, however, be 
reconstructed by the culture of the will, and all remem- 
brances revived. 

Continuity is that power which leads to forgetfulness of 
these surroundings — to abstraction and absorption. It is 
when we become absorbed in some work or passion that we 
forget our weakness, or what we know of ourselves, and rise 
up to grandeur and glory. The greatest achievements, the 
most heroic deeds, the greatest discoveries that bless man- 
kind, are all due to this little feminine faculty of will, which 
leads to insanity. 

The diffusion of spirit, the waste of life, the weakness and 
misdirection of energy, uncontrollable passions, the want of 
psychological power, the pains and aches of the body — 
these are all due to the weakness of continuity, and excessive 



L58 



THE WILL. 



self-consciousness. This self-consciousness is a rut dug 
Jeep by demerit, in which we are all sunk — as in a quag- 
mire. Purity of self is the only help for us — the only 
lubricator of the will — the only cleanser of this human 
time-piece. Purity — physical, mental and spiritual — cannot 
be achieved by outward acts. It is an inward effort — an 
inward tire kindled by the action of continuity, which burns 
out the dross of these gross natures. This fire is kindled 
by the accumulation of sjiirit ichenever and icherever 
attraction overbalances repulsion. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

THE VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY POWERS. 

The great majority of our acts are involuntary. Even 
the acts which we think we do voluntarily, are mainly either 
forced or coaxed out of us by an impulse. But, no matter 
how this may be, we know we have volition, or voluntary 
powers, however small they may be ; or no matter how vast 
the involuntary may be, it is subservient to us. Call it what 
you like — Nature or God — it is our servant. When once 
this machine is set in motion, it automatically obeys. 

A musician, after he has mastered the use of his instru- 
ment, does not will each separate motion of his fingers ; his 
mind may be occupied with words he may be singing to the 
music, but his fingers move fast or slow in accord with the 
music, and his feet work upon the pedal without attention 
or thought. So it is with all we do. In doing a piece of 
work with which one is familiar, the thought wanders away, 
but still the work goes on. In sleep the voluntary is sus- 
pended, i. e., the mind is at rest ; and at times the will also 
seems to rest, or memory and judgment to be suspended. 

Habits all become automatic, or involuntary. Habits of 
the body and mind are alike, and yet the voluntary seems to 
be of the mind : in fact, they are so closely allied, and so 
interwoven, that it is difficult to separate them, or to define 
them as separate powers. But we do know that all the light 
we have is of the mind, and all the power of it comes from 
the involuntary. Voluntarily we do as we think best, but 
the power to accomplish is the most of it. Thus it seems 
plain to me that the voluntary powers are merely a thought 



L60 THE VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY POWERS. 

we have, which thought is all we have to <rnide us. It is 
possible that this thought may bo so cultivated and enlarged 
to become as automatic as any habit, and express itself as 
any involuntary power, even in our sleep. 

Language is a mere matter of culture or habit; and so 
of thought, or any of the bodily functions. Indigestion 
may be cured; torpid liver made to act; and constipation 
of the bowels overcome, by paying constant attention to 
regularity. By paying little or no attention to the move- 
ment of the bowels, thus breaking up nature's habits, their 
warnings become less and less, and, in time, habits of con- 
stipation or inaction intervene. But if you will have a 
regular time for the evacuation, and pay strict attention 
thereto, providing an opportunity, whether there is an 
inclination or not, nature will in time listen to your demand, 
and furnish the power to remove all obstructions, and give 
life to the torpid tissues. Such is the force of habit. 

This new life comes through an effort of the will — first, 
voluntarily, but afterwards as an involuntary power or habit. 
"When it has become habitual, the bowels will notify you of 
the time, and insist upon your paying attention. It is the 
same with eating and drinking : if you eat three times 
daily, you will be hungry at those regular times ; but if you 
have no regular time for eating, hunger will not come till 
you think of it. To think of food as of something loath- 
some will kill hunger. To break in upon the regularity of 
a habit is to destroy it. To pay attention to anything is to 
become its slave. Sexual excesses are habits of thought, 
depending upon regularity for existence. So long as it is a 
habit, it will demand and enforce attention ; but turn the 
thought to something else, and the voice of the habit grad- 
ually grows weaker and weaker, till in time it will take an 
effort of thought and the conjuring of the will to restore it. 

Small as the voluntary powers may be — perhaps a mere 



THE VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY POWERS. 161 

thought, yet it is all there is of us, and our weal and woe 
depend upon their use. By use the voluntary becomes the 
involuntary. Absent-mindedness is indicative of the sinking 
of the voluntary into the involuntary. Such persons are 
more indifferent to outward things than those who are al- 
ways "wide-awake." This is, indeed, the beginning of 
trance, wherein some of the very finest orations are 
delivered. 

This " wide-awake " life is a mere habit, which is 
destroyed by the creation of another, viz: sleep. Sleep is 
a closing of the eyes to outward things, and the turning of 
the sight inward. It is the same in trance : the first is a 
sleep, or a partial sleep, of the consciousness ; the latter is 
a higher degree of consciousness : for the full wakefulness 
of the soul's powers is in a union of the voluntary with the 
involuntary. This is effected by magnetism, and sometimes 
in natural sleep ; then we have somnambulism, or sleep- 
walking, if the soul is unable to quit the body ; but if the 
soul is able to quit the body, we have prophetic visions, or 
the solving of difficult problems, or the visiting of distant 
places, spirit- worlds, etc. But in whatever way sleep or 
trance may be induced, it produces a degree of insensibility 
in the body. 

The deeper the sleep, the more insensible the body 
becomes. Mesmeric sleep is next to death. This may be 
self-induced, or through the agency of an operator. Calm- 
ness and tranquility are necessary to its production, the 
same as in natural sleep. Calmness allows the soul to ex- 
pand, and this produces sleep and trance, wherein the body 
becomes insensible. But there are two ways of producing 
nervous insensibility: one I have described ; the other is 
through increased and intense activity or excitement. Fits, 
in which sensibility is lost, are produced by excitement — 



L62 



THE VOLUNTABY AND INVOLUNTARY POWERS. 



tho cause Bometimes visible or known (or, at least, supposed 
to be), but oftener unknown. 

We know that catalepsy, common to Methodist revivals, 
known as " the power," is induced by excitement. Children 
fall down in fits through the excitement of fear. In intense 
anger the nerves have little or no feeling. Indeed, there is 
an insanity comes through anger in which there seems to be 
no sympathy, reason or feeling. Many a man has been 
maimed, wounded, and materially injured in a fight, and 
not been the least sensible of it till the excitement was over. 
So long as the tension of the nerves continues there is no 
jDain. The clenched fist of an angry man feels nothing. 
The Indian, undergoing untold tortures at the hands of his 
captors, sings his war-song and laughs in the face of his 
tormentors. Michael Servetus, being roasted on a slow 
lire made of green wood, by John Calvin, composed the 
following, which he repeated to his tormentor, with a smile 
of happiness on his face while broiling : 

' ' This side enough is toasted ; 

Turn me, tyrant, and eat ; 
For, whether raw or roasted, 

I am the better meat. " 

The Christian martyrs, while being burned at the stake, 
sang, prayed and exhorted ; assuring the bystanders that it 
was pleasant " to die for the Lord." In view of these facts, 
and what w r e know of ecstacy and the insensibility of the 
mesmerized subject, is it not at least reasonable to suppose 
that the will is master of sensation as well as motion ? There 
is no pain to the strong will. Many a man has endured 
surgical operations without the use of an anaesthetic, or 
being bound, and with not a movement in muscle or nerve. 
Xow r , if pain can be partially subdued by the will it may 
be wholly so. 

A man is made many times stronger and many times 



THE VOLUNTARY AND INVOLUNTARY POWERS. 163 

more enduring by excitement ; but the deepest and most 
power- and-health-producing excitement comes from the 
calming of passions and the awakening of the higher fac- 
ulties. There is a spiritual excitement, far more potent and 
exhilarating than the excitement of any of the passions, in 
which ecstacy is passed and the soul escapes. It is then 
that these bodies are proof to the elements, and command 
the respect of even wild beasts. 

The Rahat of India seeks some jungle or lonely place, or 
some dangerous place by the side of some swamp or lagoon, 
infested by monstrous reptiles, where man fears to intrude ; 
here he composes himself for his meditations, and goes 
calmly into an unconscious state, and the monsters crawl 
out and lie down by his side, and sleep also. Never was one 
known to be harmed by them. (See Isis Unveiled.) 

Is not this the same power by which Daniel commanded 
the respect of the lions in their den ? The full power of 
the will does not manifest itself in our normal state ; there 
must be an excitement of some kind in order to call into 
play all our powers. But the full measure of power is not 
in the tension of the nerves and muscles ; it is in the ten- 
sion of the inner man or spiritual body. This is not a 
rousing up as of anger, and a propulsion of the spirit out- 
ward, but rather a letting go of the nerves — a resignation 
of the soul as in sleep. This is possible only in habit. 

True culture gives resignation, which, pushed on to ex- 
tremes, gives power to withstand fire. The Acolyte for the 
Priesthood of Buddhism must possess super-mundane pow- 
ers ere he can be admitted. I have been told by a gentle- 
man who was born in India, and lived there until he was 
twenty- one years of age, that they are tested when they 
apply for Priesthood by being required to walk over a long 
bed of live coals of fire with their naked feet, and to do it 
tvithout hurry, and to come off at the other end without a 



164 TDK VOLUNTARY AND [NVOLUNTART POWERS. 

singe or smell of fire ; it' they fail they are not admitted, 
but are sent back to their practice of meditative rites. 

D. D. Home is one instance of our own time and country 
who has manifested this power, as well as that of levitation, 
by virtue of which Jesus walked upon the water. I might 
multiply facts "ad infinitum" if it were the intent of this 
work. The past and present are both full of the proof. 
Search for it, — not alone in the Scriptures of the olden 
time, but in the living testimony of the present. The will 
is a magical power ; but its highest magic is in letting go. 

The strong well-balanced man accepts things as they 
come with a spirit attuned to the sweet melodies of creative 
power : and weeps not over blighted joys or withered hopes. 
He looks above and beyond these things, and his soul is 
filled with rest thereby. He does not essay to control others, 
for he has as much as he can do to control himself. By this 
means he converts his enemies into friends, who come to 
him, as an oracle, for counsel. His control is far greater 
than that of one whose whole life is spent in trying to con- 
trol others. The gigantic evils of this life come from the 
desire to rule others — or to make others do as you wish 
them to do. Counsel is far better than rule. Let every 
one do as they like, but scatter light and knowledge of the 
true way to happiness and power. 

Reader, if you have lost youth and happiness — let go ! 
If friends have proved false and ungrateful — let go ! If 
your heart is torn by unrequited love — let go ! If you are 
poor — let go ! If you are wealthy — let go ! If Providence 
forsakes you — let go ! If you love life — let go ! If you are 
tired of life — let go ! If you look back upon your life's 
journey with regrets — let go! For ''He that would save 
his life shall lose it, and he that would lose his life shall 
save it." 



CHAPTER XV 

WILL-CULTUKE. 

Let him who aspires to power commence by a close and 
critical analysis of himself. As will is the extraordinary 
of man, its culture is the culture of the entire man, and 
the regeneration of him — or another creation. The methods 
of it will be found as extraordinary as God himself — for 
how can a thing cultivate itself without God's help ? And 
God's methods are not our methods. 

The three great principles of the selfhood, from, by and 
through which all actions come, are (1) Love ; (2) Imagina- 
tion ; (3) Will. The Imagination is neutral, as indifference 
or nature ; "Will is masculine ; Love is feminine. As a hus- 
bandman must till the soil in order to make it productive, 
so must a man culture his loves in order to the production 
of will-power. As a slave must first overcome his master 
before he can be free, so must the will overcome its loves : 
hence, love is the way of freedom, of regeneration, and 
power. 

Self- analysis shows impurities which must, as a primary 
step, be removed. There can be no progress without vasta- 
tion. The old habits, vices, follies, modes of thought, loves, 
hates, envy, jealousies, covetousness, fear, pride and egotism 
must all die and be buried far out of sight as a preparatory 
step to soul-growth; and will is cultivated and made strong 
in the subduing of those things which limit its freedom and 
power. Purity is the only thing that cannot be destroyed; 
so, the purity of love, will and wisdom are immortal. 



166 WILL-CULTURE. 

It is only the semblance of real tilings which die or 
change; hence, that which is supposed to be real love, or 
real will, or real wisdom, is only the semblance of the real, 
for they change or die. So, in the regeneration; the sem- 
blance must pass away to give place to the real. These 
bodies are mere reflections of ourselves, which we, seeing in 
the mirror or mirage of nature, fall in love with, and 
embracing, die. 

Now, this law is the same in relation to sex-love — we love 
the reflex of ourselves which we see in the mirror called 
woman. This is not real love, for its operations being 
downward, we propagate only our kind, or conditions, or 
emanations, which are antagonistic to us; while real love 
propagates new atoms — parts of a divine body, unchangeable 
and eternal —its operations are upward, and its emanations 
mingle in the essence of God. 

The infinite is all power, and it is man's field of opera- 
tion. It encompasses him round about; it bends to him 
with anything he asks for; but we must work for what we 
want. "Not every one that saith, Lord! Lord! shall enter 
the Kingdom; but he that doeth" — L e., he that worketh 
with a will in the right direction. Now the road to power 
is in the perfection of our nature, which is in the at- 
tainment of duality first. I have already spoken of ideal 
love, of its conception, growth and union, or marriage 
in the spirit. Now, the true methods of will-culture have 
for their object growth. Soul -growth is inward or a 
letting go of outward things, and a looking forward to the 
realization of a true life in which true love appears as one 
with the w T ill, or the female united to the male in real 
durable oneness of being, or marriage. 

There can be no union of objects; therefore, man and 
woman, being separated entities, are not one — neither can 
be — on this earth : hence, marriage is a semblance or type 



WILL-CULTURE. 167 

of a reality, or changeless condition. A union of two in 
one, or two in spirit. This will be more fully set forth in 
the Chapter on Gifts of the Spirit. Harmony must be first 
had in the individual ere it can be effected with another, 
and for this reason a lifetime of effort or culture is neces- 
sary, in which things inharmonious or at variance with each 
other are to be avoided. 

Owing to the inharmonies of marriage (and the loss of 
power therein) the Essenes and Rosicrucians of old dis- 
carded marriage as something unreal, and lived lives of 
celibacy. For this reason the Buddhistic and Catholic 
priesthood are not permitted to marry. Further reasons 
are set forth in regard to the nature of sin, to which the 
reader is referred. In order to destroy that which retards 
the soul in its flights, viz: sin, its opposite or antagonist, 
must be strengthened; to this end the whole mind must be 
given up to the contemplation of such things as make the 
soul sick and disgusted with sin. 

This creates another emotion antagonistic to love, viz: 
feelings of disgust at that which the world is mad after. 
Love is an emotion. Will is motion, but love is a reflex of 
it, or an emotion, or wo-man, because emotions ruin the will 
or the man in leading it into captivity. The object of love 
is to join itself to the will in order to increase power to 
enjoy, as a loving wife works for and delights in the 
happiness of her husband. So woman should not unite 
with man save for the purpose of begetting life, spirit, 
poiver. In true marriage, according to the divine intention 
of it, there are no children; and no disease; neither do 
they die. 

To have an ideal elevated, pure and full of rest and 
unalloyed pleasure, is to have the pain of disappointment in 
realization. It is to kindle a consuming fire at your very 
vitals, which you are obliged to quench by the will, because 



168 WILL-CULTURE. 

no heart answers your heart-throbs; because all fall short of 
your ideal love — this it is for him to suffer who aspires to 
be something more than the common. There is no great- 
ness not born of pain, and there is no pain greater than 
that of a heart bruised; so soft is it, and flexible, that it 
will not break. 

Sexual love has the strongest hold of any of the passions; 
it is the hardest for the will to turn from its lust. The 
effort to idealize love in the imagination is analogous to 
that of the libertine and debauchee — only one is chaste 
while the other is impure. The onanist sees in his imagina- 
tion the object of his lust, and thus acting upon his 
emotions pollutes himself. It is the same with the liber- 
tine. These emotions that destroy power and the soul are 
created by an inward action; and in proportion to the 
power of concentration is the spirit drawn within, condensed 
and projected, and thus the life, spirit and power thrown 
away. But this wasted virility, though lost to the man, is 
not lost in nature, for it is a protoplasm from which spring 
infusoria, worms, insects, reptiles, etc., which are a curse to 
the earth and mankind. Your ideal love may not be a very 
near approach to true love: but your highest conception of 
womanly beauty, purity, goodness, truth, grace and excel- 
lence, coupled with form and action, is your estimate of it, 
and as such is your kingdom of power towards which you 
grow rapidly or slowly as the case may be. 

Control must begin at home — in the selfhood. But 
how, or in what manner, can a thing culture and control 
itself ? How can the will regulate its own action ? Firstly, 
then, the will is the nearest approach to freedom of any- 
thing we know of; love is limited by the sensibilities; wis- 
dom, by that which we learn: but will, being free from 
emotion, is free to produce emotions according to its love 
and wisdom. So, love and wisdom are the shackles of the 



W ILL -CULTURE. 169 

will. Now, we do not control that which we love; that 
which we love controls us. Hence the necessity of subduing 
love as the beginning of the road to power. We do not 
destroy love, but we wean it from sensuous objects. Thus 
weaned, it becomes at one with the will in its freedom, and 
the flights of the soul. This is the At-one-ment — (Atone- 
ment.) Love cannot be purified. "There is no impure 
love," said P. B. Randolph. What we call purifying love 
is merely the vastating of pretenses. Love itself is honest; 
but this world's love is in pretending to be what we are 
not. It is the shame, which, in order to hide, God clothed 
Adam and Eve in the skins of animals. If all the shame 
were removed from mankind, the little love left would be 
very small indeed. 

Will -culture is a thing altogether antagonistic to general 
religious ideas; for the will is generally considered of the 
" e^/il one" — to be broken and crushed. With this idea I 
am at variance. We have far too little power, and to 
increase in it is the acme of all religion. It is the false 
direction of power wherein evil exists, not in the power 
itself. To enlighten the mind, then, or to culture the 
imagination, is to control man's creative powers or loves and 
guide them in the right direction. 

All culture must begin at home. Begin by a reconstruct- 
ion of yourself. If you feel that you are superior to others, 
disabuse yourself of that idea at once. In arrogance there 
is no growth of the soul. To feel as you really are, is to 
feel very weak and very small. In order to rise above the 
common level, you must be real. To feel equal is to feel 
real and to be real. Let every man have his opinions in 
freedom — the rights you claim, freely grant to others. 
Thus you pluck the motes out of your eye. Judge no man, 
for you know not their motives. The freedom you claim 
for yourself, that grant to others, even in thought and feel- 



1 70 



WILL-CULTURE. 



ing — for freedom is the principle of growth — the first and 
the last, and the only principle in existence. Now lie who 
is bound by love, hate, or any passion whatever, is not free. 
How can he expect to have power? 

Power only comes by freedom. To be free, then, 
necessitates a cutting loose of the bonds of slavery. To 
love nothing*, to hate nothing, to have no likes or dislikes, 
to have no prejudices, no tastes, no preferences — this it is 
to be free. The little power we have comes from freedom. 
Xow let him, who expects to cnltnre his will, bear in mind 
this fact — that it cannot be done for a selfish or mercenary 
purpose. I am aware that one part of it, viz: firmness and 
self-esteem may be cultivated and increased, but it is not 
real culture of the wall after all, but a throwing out of 
balance of the will, which is destructive in the main. 

All power, to be lasting, must descend from the higher 
to the lower, as a baptism ; and this descent is accomplished 
by and through the feminine of will — viz : Continuity. The 
second act of will is in the propulsion of force into the 
nerve — as in grasping of the hand or in striking of a blow. 
But the first effort of will is in the gathering together of 
force before striking. The latter is an expansion act, like 
the inflation of the lungs; the former is an exhaustive act, 
as the expiration of the breath. 

Xow the first, or primal, or foundation of all power is 
inflation. This is concentration, and involves the exercise 
of continuity. The greater the concentration, the greater 
will be the power manifested — either in physical, or in 
mental, or in spiritual effort. Now, in making a great 
physical effort, there must be a stimulant or an excitement, 
in order to a manifestation of the full power of the 
individual. This excitement, of course, is a mental effort 
in which the mind expands to its utmost tension of energy, 
or feeling, or want of feeling, in which a resolution is 



WILL-CULTURE. 171 

formed, born or begotten, and the nerves and. muscles are 
braced rip — filled to overflowing with force. 

The whole person expands, as a prospective mother, and 
is eager to deliver itself of its superabundant force, energy 
or burden. When full to overflowing with anger, love or 
any passion, we are eager to express it: but the first effort 
is to be full. This is a mental effort in which the will gets 
its excitement from the dwelling upon wrongs, or love, in 
the imagination. Now, this " brooding" over wrongs, or 
dwelling in thought upon things involves the exercise of 
continuity. From this it is known that the real power of 
will comes from the feminine part of it, viz : concentrativeness 
or continuity. 

It is also evident that the more one believes in the reality 
of the wrong or love, the fuller they will become of love or 
anger, and the power of its manifestation will be propor- 
tionally greater. Now, this is exactly the case in all occult 
or spiritual power. The excitement of the will comes from 
its dwelling upon an idea or an object to be attained and 
in the resisting of the excitement of the passions. In fact, 
the culture of the will is in the alternate excitement of the 
passions, and in subduing the same without expression. 

For instance: Some one wrongs you a little; you seize 
upon it as if it were a sweet and delicious morsel, and by 
constantly thinking of it in its most aggravating f eatures, 
and by dwelling upon it, you work yourself into a mental 
fever in which you feel like " knocking down," "kicking," 
" shooting," and "dragging out," — but you do no such 
thing; but before your passion is too strong for you, you 
turn your mind to another feature of the wrong, and begin 
to look upon it as not quite so hideous, after all, and 
gradually it grows less and less, as the excitement cools 
down. 



1 ?2 WH 1 CULT1 

You have not manifested this to the world, but it has had 
an effect upon you. Your will power has grown in the 
exercise. Physical power grows by manifestation, but 
spiritual power, by silently suppressing or repressing it. 
If you express your power physically, it is lost to you 
spiritually. Hence the motto: " Silence is strength." 

In thus exciting yourself, and then controlling yourself, 
you are creating power, as well as teaching the involuntary 
powers obedience. After practicing for a while this exercise, 
you will find you are becoming very excitable, and you can 
excite yourself even without any outward provocation. A jeal- 
ous person can easily become half crazy about nothing. In 
this manner you learn how to create emotions of a low order 
first, and then you gradually step up to emotions of a 
higher order, such as mirth, love, pity, rapture; but of all 
creative emotions, that of love transcends all else. 

To gaze at a dead body with worms crawling in and out, 
and look at it as human, and think that that is the end of 
all flesh, and that you will be the same in a short time, 
disgusts one fearfully with the follies of life, and tames the 
passions of any man who thinks at all. This helps the 
will to gain the ascendency; but after seeing it once or 
twice, you can see it in your mind at any time, and thus 
subdue all low and unworthy thoughts and feelings — this 
strengthens the will. ;i He who keeps death in view seldom 
does a wrong." 

The will that cannot create emotions by its own effort is 
weak: it needs a stimulant. To keep your heart young 
and full of tenderness and love for your companion, think 
of her as when you wooed and won her. To destroy your 
love, think of it in connection with something disgusting 
and low, and it will speedily die; but do not be deceived; 
some things die very hard. Habits take hold of the vitals. 
Many who read these lines may be able to see what they 



WILL-CULTUKE. 1 iij 

desire in the mind without physical contact. Such can 
develop power rapidly. 

Others, again, will need some aggravating circumstances 
to stir the emotions. To provoke another to anger with 
words, looks and gestures, and then subdue yourself with 
a thought, and control and subdue the other by the creations 
of mirth or grief, is a good exercise, but a dangerous 
one. 

"Who can stand and calmly take a blow without resent- 
ment? But it was in view of this same subject that Jesus 
said: "If a man smite you on one cheek, turn the other 
also.' 9 Habits are hereditary as well as acquired. They, 
like diseases, are hard to cure. All habits of the ordinary 
man tend outward, and hence are weakening. To be more 
than ordinary, work against habits. This is done only by 
creating other and opposite habits. 

"Does thine eye offend thee, pluck it out!" or train it 
not to see objects external, by turning it inwardly. Per- 
haps you are fond of some particular article of diet — you 
love the taste of it. Pork, for instance. You first satisfy 
yourself that it feeds scrofula and the humors of the blood, 
and you desire to leave it off. You go to work to kill the 
taste for it by becoming disgusted mentally with the thing 
you delight in. It is done by meditation thus: Imagine a 
stomach filled with flesh fermenting and working like 
maggots in carrion. Flesh in the stomach, as in the sun, 
becomes putrid. It is nothing but a bit of corpse dressed 
and cooked, that I am eating. Behold the market! hung 
round and round with corpses, not unlike my own, if it were 
dressed like these. A little while ago they were moving, 
living beings, like myself. I know that I become like that 
upon which I feed. See the swine! the scavenger of the 
filth of living things; what a loathsome object! and I am 



17-4 ^ILL-CULTURE. 

Ilia scavenger. " I am naught but a sepulchre full of rotten 
Qesh." 

Behold the butcher! A living corpse cutting up dead 
ones! while others stand eagerly looking on, with mouths 
watering like dogs for the feast of rottenness. See the 
carts laden with corpses! — hurrying away to the meat 
shops — yet warm with life, holding up their naked, muti- 
k3 limbs in mute appeals to heaven against the horrid 
butchery! while a demon in human form sits driving to 
charnel house. 

By such thoughts persisted in, the taste changes, and 
the stomach heaves at the sight or thought which we con- 
jure in regard to food or anything else. Thought is sight, 
feeling, tasting, smelling, etc., all in one. The taste changes, 
as our thoughts change in regard to it. Just so with all 
the passions. 

There is no virtue where there is no temptation ; no merit 
where there is no dismerit ; no grace where there is no sin ; 
no power where there are no obstacles. The greater the 
obstacle overcome, the greater the glory of the achievement. 
The filthiest thing contains the most life; but this life is 
worthless till utilized. 

The will is the husbandman, who, if needs be, drains his 
ground, enriches, plows, harrows, plants and cultivates his 
crop. If he be not slothful, he shall, according to nature's 
laws 5 reap his harvest. So with the aspirant to power; he 
must prepare his body, his blood must be filtered, and the 
acids and alkalis harmonized, and the flesh made soft, sweet 
and glowing. Drugs will not do this. The body must be 
reached through the mind, or not at all. 

It is a well-known fact that the imagination affects the 
body. Fear, disgust, and in fact, all the passions have an 
effect upon the blood. One may accelerate the action of 
the heart, while another retards it. All the passions get 



WILL-CULTUKE. 175 

their excitement from the imagination. So, the imagination 
is the connecting link between the body and the soul. It 
is the door between the visible and the invisible worlds of 
sense. To purify the body, then, the will must affect it 
through the imagination. The imagination corrupts the 
blood; why may it not purify it as well? That we do not 
know how this is done is no argument against this proposi- 
tion. Love tinges the cheek with the glow of magnetic 
health; fear congeals the blood; disgust produces neuralgia, 
and lust produces consumption. Hate dries up and coagu- 
lates the humors ; covetousness produces dyspepsia, — and so 
'on to the end of the chapter. 

Every passion, and even thought and reason have their 
roots in the imagination. The effect that things have upon 
us depends upon the way they are looked at. Beauty and 
deformity spring alike from the imagination. We receive 
the spirit of a thing by looking at it — smelling, tasting, 
hearing — and more than all, by thinking of it. We get the 
grossness of food by eating it, but the real life of it is 
extracted by the thoughts we have of it. In other words 
the ideas we have in regard to the quality and use of food 
impart to it something akin to themselves. 

Thus the body may be gradually changed by diet; not 
so much by quality as by quantity ; for the will imparts any 
desired quality. 

A very sensitive person suffers nausea by the sight of 
that which is loathsome — to conjure that thing up in the 
imagination has the same effect. Many a person is afflicted 
with dyspepsia and other disorders from a settled conviction 
of the inevitableness of it. The idea that you will cure 
yourself is better than medicine. The idea that you will 
eat simply because you are obliged to do so in order to live, 
and not for the pleasure of eating, is better in reality than 
food or fasting; but to eat, drink and love for the sole 



1 76 WILL CULTURE. 

object of attaining immortal power, and not for the sen- 
suous gratification of the appetites or passions, is to work 

upon the mind, Mood, body and spirit as God works — down- 
ward. This downward operation eliminates the grossness, 
and leaves the essences or life for your use. 

Remember this simple thing : All impurities are a result 
of com pounding, or of combining different substances, 
fluids, magnetisms and S2)i)'its in one. Purity is oneness. 
The simpler the diet the better ; one thing is better than 
three, four or a dozen. Never eat for pleasure, and eat only 
when hungry, and stop while still hungry. To test your 
power of will, think of something sickening as you gaze 
upon your food ; if your stomach rejects the food from that 
cause, you have no need of any more food at that time — 
cease eating at once. If you drop your knife, fork or spoon, 
or have any such mishap at the table, cease eating. Never 
think how your food tastes, and never indulge in talk and 
laughter while eating ; let your thoughts be fixed upon the 
object to be attained, whether it be the elimination of dis- 
ease, grossness, bad habits, etc., or the building up of the 
dual divine nature wherein all power resides. 

The one great curse of civilization (?) is gormandizing. 
AVe need very little food if the truth were known ; just 
enough should be taken into the stomach to form a nucleus 
of attraction for the spirit to materialize itself, or condense 
and form new particles of blood, nerve and flesh. Behold ! 
the miracle of the loaves and fishes as an illustration of this 
principle. Food multiplies itself in the half-filled stomach, 
when it is left vacant from a principle ; but when the stom- 
ach is full there is no room for multiplication or condensa- 
tion to take place, and a filthy, rotting, destructive process 
takes the place of divine and life- improving process. 

The life of the body comes from the spirit, and not 
wholly from the food we take in at the mouth ; of course. 



WILL-CULTURE. 



177 



the full stomach crowds the spirit out, and there is no room 
left for the action of the spirit therein. Besides, the spirit 
feeds upon that which is in harmony with it in if s passage 
to and from, and radiation around the body, and passing 
into the body deposits therein that life which it has accu- 
mulated. 

Look at Dr. Tanner, fasting forty days !* Look at the 
fast of Jesus for forty days ! and then behold Gautama 
Buddha, living seven years alone in the forests of Thibet, 
subsisting wholly upon berries and roots ; and at list throw- 
ing himself at the foot of " the sacred Bodhi tree," vowed 
that he would not again taste food until he had achieved 
his object, viz, the attainment of supernatural energy ; and 
then, when so weak with the long fast that he could no 
longer stand upon his feet, the "Dewas" (celestial beings) 
came and fed and nursed him. Did he attain his object ? 



*Says Dr. Alexander Wilder of Orange, N". J., in a letter to me after 
the first edition of this work was published : 

"I notice that you mention Dr. Tanner. I watched with him sev- 
eral times, and was present at the end. Of the genuineness of the 
matter there is not room for two opinions. No man willing to be can- 
did can possibly doubt the evidence. That * Science gained nothing by 
it ' (as often asserted), was solely because the men who dictate what 
shall be regarded as science, determined in advance that no observation 
or fact ascertained should be accepted. Yet enough was observed in 
1880, to have preserved the life of Gen. Garfield in 1881, if it had been 
put to use. * * * I was somewhat disappointed in my observation 
of Dr. Tanner Having read of trances, ecstatic visions, and intimate 
communications with the interior world, in connection with prolonged 
fasts, I hoped to witness something of the sort now. I did not. His 
mind was always clear, but his temper was somewhat irritable. The 
senses became exquisitely keen. For 15 days he drank nothing ; he 
was a distressed sight. He actually gained weight for a day or two 
after resuming. But he was very sensitive ; he could ill tolerate 
Croton water and went daily to a spring in Central Park for a supply. 
He also complained of the air at Clarendo: Hall — very justly. The 



1< S WILL-CULTURE. 

Look at the results and then judge. He lived about live 
hundred years before Christ, and died when he got ready, 
(at the age of eighty years); founding the greatest religion 
that man has ever known, whose adherents numbered a few 
years ago the enormous figure of three hundred and 
sixty- nine millions, and that without violence or bloodshed. 
(See "Hardy's Eastern Monachism.") 

Those who eat the least have the best health and last the 
longest. Life is sustained more from the atmosphere and 
electricity than from the solid food taken into the stomach. 
It is the essence of things which is of greatest value, and 
the essence is not limited to the solid substance, but radiates 
round about as its aura — intangible to our dull senses, but 
nevertheless existing. It is upon the aura of things that 
the spirit feeds, and according to the attractive power of the 
soul is its pasture. So long as the spirit is fat it will feed 
the body. 

The glutton has a weak, lean, hungry spirit, and little 
will-power. The diseased forms which meet the eye at 

spectators would have worn me out ; how he endured them I cannot 
well surmise. Yet several individuals did remark a loss of strength 
after being near him. This fact of the fast is not so very remarkable. 
But for our abominable materialism we could easily perceive the mat- 
ter. Griscom, in Chicago, fasted 45 days. The Hindoo Fakirs and 
others do the same. Perhaps the powers most valuable are hidden. 
We make too much account of meat and drink, and far too little of the 
forces about us that transcend these. A tree will grow and not exhaust 
the soil materially. A coral reef is a mass of lime gathered where no 
lime is. A chick in the egg gets a skeleton from substance that chem- 
istry does not reveal the existence of. The diatomes built a mass of 
flinty stone under Petersburg, in Virginia. I opine that living things 
transmute forces into matters, by changing their polarity, so that the 
problem, imputed incorrectly to the alchemists, of transmutation, is 
solved by the living beings of this earth. * * * There is a brother- 
hood of true men, and they recognize each other by a pass-word, more 
expressive than any symbolism of a society. * * :: " 



WILL-CULTURE. 179 

every turn, are evidence of weak, small, spiritless will — and 
collapsed and angular souls. They present a ravenous mul- 
titude, a standing mockery of nature, and a clamorous 
rebuke of the wisdom of an infinite Creator. When dis- 
eased, in pain and trouble, how nice it is to lay the blame 
on fate, nature or God. But if we would only stop and 
think that we have to suffer from the malignity or mistakes 
of the relentless power which compels us to exist, and that 
no prayers are answered save those of the mill, we would 
philosophically shoulder the power to be as much as to do 
and to suffer. 

We could then see clearly that the diseases, failures and 
mistakes, ascribed to fate, are due to our own ignorance, 
weakness, and headstrong folly. We have to bear the con- 
sequences of our acts — why not claim the credit of causa- 
tion ? So long as we can ascribe our acts to circumstances, 
nature, fate or God, we trust to luck and drift like bubbles 
upon the frothing deep — effortless. 

It takes effort to accumulate property ; it takes effort to 
be a man under all circumstances ; but it costs no effort to 
be a beggar or a knave. This has become so common that 
it has given rise to the trite saying, that " man is prone to 
do evil as the sparks are to fly upward." It is far easier to 
fall than to climb ; but it hurts fearfully at the bottom. The 
labor of climbing is pleasant after you get used to it ; for 
the higher you climb the more vigorous you become, and 
the purer the atmosphere. W^hy ? Because the climber is 
ascending towards life, while he who falls is descending 
towards pain, disease, weakness, darkness, death and non- 
entity. Will -culture is the royal ladder, anchored in God's 
throne, and reaching to every soul. 

You cannot carry much grossness, either of body, mind, 
or spirit, up that ladder. Grossness is always positive, and 
very difficult to become negative. But the greater the gross- 



1 80 WILL-CULTURE. 

ss, the greater the power when the victory is won. Paul 
understood this. He says, in substance : " Where sin 
abounds, grace doth much more abound." I have already 
explained the reason. It takes a great soul to excel in any- 
thing. Great criminals are always men of greatness, mis- 
directed. 

The mind is a wandering vagrant ; like the eye, it wan- 
ders restlessly in quest of new things. But " let your eye 
ba single." and your mind will follow after. Look steadily 
at a speck on the wall — think steadily of one thing — and 
gradually there steals over you strange sensations, as clouds 
and flashes of light pass before your vision. To make the 
mind single — as an eye with the motes plucked out sees only 
one object — limit the range of thought. In this you are 
drawing the mind to a focus preparatory to elongation. As 
the eye with dust therein sees nothing distinctly, so the 
mind untrained has no focus, no depth, no clairvoyance ; it 
wanders in a maze of error. 

To call its scattered forces together is a herculean task, 
but it is small compared to the focusing of the spirit. As 
involuntary powers follow the lead of the voluntary — as the 
mind follows the direction of the eye, being fixed when the 
eye is fixed — so spirit obeys the will. Agitation of the body 
disturbs the mind ; agitation of the mind distracts and con- 
fuses the spirit, so that the will is deprived of its means to 
execute. Hence the necessity of calmness. 

Continuity is that which produces rest and satisfaction, 
as the love of a woman. It is the feminine of will, and 
creates by persistent effort. In deep, profound meditation, 
the soul becomes pregnant with greatness, for the spirit, no 
longer driven from the soul by outward motions and emo- 
tions, slowly comes home to the soul, being called in and 
projected upward and inward. As spirit is fire, or that which 
produces fire, there is heat produced by its accumulation, 



WILL-CULTURE. 181 

which in time blazes forth, at first soft and mild, in great 
sheets of light, afterwards as the forked lightning. This 
light is life, which feeds the spirit body, and gives it strength 
and growth. 

It is in this turning within, this meditation, that the 
positive will becomes the negative; and when pushed to 
extremes, total abstraction or forgetfulness follows; this is 
Trance. In trance the angels and celestial spirits are 
attracted, for the whole universe of spirit impinges upon the 
soul, by virtue of its attractive power. The Heavens are 
opened, and there is nothing hid from the truly great will. 
It pierces to any centre of power, energy, love, or knowl- 
edge, and drags therefrom its secrets. 

This is indeed the closet wherein Jesus told his disciples 
to enter when they prayed; and to pray in secret, not letting 
the right hand know what the left hand doeth. In this 
way is the answer of prayer possible. " God is a spirit, and 
they who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." 
To be in a trance is to be enveloped in spirit — to be 
" baptized with the Holy Ghost and with Fire." No decep- 
tion, no untruth can enter here. Truth elevates the soul, 
and is a condition requisite to acquisition of all occult 
knowledge and power. To be true to yourself is to be true 
to God. To be true to conditions is to be divested of all 
fear, distrust, and doubt; these bar the way and close the 
door. 

An abiding faith in the Infinity of Power, and belief in 
the ability of the soul to rise to realms thereof, are essen- 
tially basic principles of progress. To awaken the soul 
from its long sleep of the ages, a preparation is necessary. 
All passions must be put to sleep. The temper must be 
subjugated, and the animosities of nature must be destroyed. 
This is a herculean task to most men, but unless this be 
done, let no one boast of his will-power. 



182 



WILL-CULTURE. 



The reason is obvious why these conditions are requisite. 
The larger the soul the greater the agitation of the ele- 
ments within its radius; and the passions being the easiest 
disturbed are all in excessive activity. This explains why 
many noble-souled men go to the bad. Those capable of 
soaring the highest fall the lowest when bereft of self-con- 
trol. The soul is an absolute calm, and when all things are 
calm outside it expands itself as if to burst its prison- walls; 
then the Unnatural rushes upon its prisoner to overcome 
its power and destroy it. The calm warm sunshine of sum- 
mer days creates vast vacuums in the atmosphere; then 
comes the cyclone, the tornado, the lightning. These are 
nature's passions, which rage till the vacuum is subdued. 

The essential office of the soul is to create, and it does 
this by motions and emotions. Repulsion drives, diffuses, 
and scatters the spirit abroad. Attraction draws, not only 
its own to itself, but the aura or spirit of other things, 
which it appropriates so far as it is able. And this appro- 
priation or fusion of elements is either elevating and life- 
giving, or is destructive. 

The fire of things is life, and there are no compounds 
thereof — it is one; but the aura of things is graded from 
iire to the grossest stench, which united, forms a compound 
that is not pure. Purity feeds the tike-body, in which 
death and destruction have no place. 

Water in agitation becomes pure; but stagnant water has 
more life in it than running water. Of course the spirit 
in concentration becomes stagnant for a time, and in this 
stagnation, as in stagnant water, life in myriad forms 
springs into being. But ere they have being in the spirit, 
by persistent effort of will, in concentration upon the Idea 
of a Divine body, this life is condensed, or compelled to 
take form as One. 

I am aware that there is a spiritual body which forms at 



WILL-CULTURE. 183 

death, but it is not an immortal body. This has been seen 
and described by many clairvoyants, and is spoken of by 
Paul; but the Divine body is formed in this body during 
earth-life, or it is not formed at all. It is not a compound, 
neither is it corruptible matter. It is not seen by you, but 
you will know of it by having a feeling of immortal life and 
undying power within. When perfected, all power in 
heaven and in earth will be yours — not as a man, but as a 
God. 

"A mere fancy sketch" — "a picture of a disordered 
brain!" Nevertheless, it is a shadow of creative power, 
projected from the realm of the incomprehensible beyond! 
Is there such a realm ? If so, does it contain things ? 

To return to our subject. In the concentration of spirit 
is increased life, sensation, sensitiveness, motions, emotions, 
and power of all sensuous enjoyments. Hence many fall 
into the slough of sense on the road, and never get out. 

The body is filled full to overflowing with spirit (mag- 
netism miscalled), and the entire being vibrates with 
pleasure-seeking emotions and longings. None but the 
pure can pass over this bridge; the impure fall at "the 
threshhold." Monstrous shapes stand guard here — " Cheru- 
bim" with " flaming swords" guarding " the way to the 
tree of life." 

It is the combustion of the compounds in the spirit which 
causes the commotion, which, if resisted, they become 
rectified in time. 

The road to calmness, tranquility, peace, is, first, to be 
thoroughly satisfied in your own mind that such is the only 
way to health and happiness. I am not going to argue this 
point, it is the universal instinct of *all thinking, reasonable 
men — none but savages will dispute it. This point settled, 
then go to work to attain it. 

This is done by a constant and eternal watchfulness. As 



1 84 WILL-CULTUEE. 

I before stated, the passions must be controlled, subdued, 
and brought into total and abject subjection to the will. 
This is best accomplished by setting apart one hour each 
evening for meditation. During this hour you think only 
c? the weakness and folly of anger, lust, avarice, envy, etc., 
dwelling most upon your greatest and most besetting weak- 
ness in such a manner as to cause you to loathe yourself; 
think of all you have done during the day — of the thoughts 
and feelings you have had, especially dwelling upon your 
failures at self-control; aggravating your follies, and not 
trying to excuse yourself in the least. If you feel like ask- 
ing for help, do so, but in thought only, and that the last 
thing you do, and as briefly as possible. 

Compare yourself with the calm, tranquil beauty of a 
flower, or a twinkling star, and thus take the pride out of 
your pretended greatness and egotism. Think of the body 
as needing your utmost care of nursing, as an ulcer needing 
to be dressed and poulticed — not that you love the ulcer, 
but to assuage its pain. 

Only a few years, and loathsome worms will crawl out 
and in at Hs nine orifices, and filthy matter will frost the 
lips you now curl so proudly. To destroy any feeling create 
its opposite. Is your heart agitated, torn and lacerated 
with unrequited love ? Does jealousy steal away your sleep 
and peace of mind ? Kill it then by clothing in your mind 
the object in garments of disgust. Rise above it in your 
thought, and look down upon it with disgust as an eagle 
passes by carrion. Fix your mind upon its worst and most 
disgusting aspect ; thus forgetting its allurements, the love 
grows less and less, until at last you wonder that you ever 
had such a feeling. 

Analyze, dissect the human heart, turn it over and over, 
pick it to pieces shred by shred, and see if you can find its 
main spring — when found, it will be just like your own. Do 



WILL-CULTURE. 185 

you hate ? Have you an enemy who delights in your woe ? 
Well, kill your hate, and thus your enemy, by learning to 
love him. '*Oh ! that is impossible," says one. Impossible 
only to the weak. The will that cannot create love is a 
mere semblance — a bubble ; it cannot endure. Christ said, 
"Love your enemies." 

In order to produce love, you must sow the seed first, be- 
fore it can grow. The seeds of love are respect. In your 
meditations fix your mind upon him, and thus evoke his 
"similacrum," and compel him to reveal his best nature to 
you ; thus you can find in all some little good to inspire 
your respect. Culture this, losing sight of his deformities 
and infirmities of character, for it shall in time ripen into 
love to the building up of yourself and him. Are you supe- 
rior to your enemy ? If so, it is only in your love or char- 
ity, and not in pretense. 

"Pray for your enemies." Desire is prayer, which, to be 
answered, must be so intense that acts go therewith. To 
pray for your enemy is to do him good — not in the mere 
breathing of desire, but by kindly looks and acts. A gentle 
manner, a kind look, or word fitly spoken, an unobtrusive 
gift always goes to the heart, and will do more to kill enmity 
and elevate the soul than all the egotism on the globe. 
Pride, avarice, envy and malice have no wings, they are 
monsters of the deep, and have their home in the slime ; if 
yon harbor them they will carry you down, down. They 
leave you as you grow calm and tranquil in lovefulness. If 
you find you cannot grow in love, go down into disgust, and 
there wallow till the Divine fire is kindled ; but do not get 
disgusted with others — your field of labor is in yourself, in 
your own passions and weaknesses. 

It is out of disgust, as out of the cesspools of hell, that 
true manhood and spiritual power takes its rise. He who is 



ISO 



WILL- CULT I FEE 



not disgusted with his own weaknesses and follies remains 
in them as a hog in his tilth. 

In man's natural state he is indifferent; hence, to him, 
there is no good nor evil, no high, no low — all things are 
alike— indifferent. Like the earth without living things to 
inhabit it, is simply neither good nor evil. Bnt man in ar 
unnatural state is seething, boiling over, raving mad with 
the tires of hist ; he knows nothing of love or its divinity ; 
he scoffs at the idea of the sonl-nnion of the male and the 
female as the door to immortal life and Godlike energy. 

All habits arise from and have their life in Inst. Sexnal 
habits are no exception, and the rales for destroying the 
taste for food and drink apply to sex-love as well. 

The fires of lust flow downward naturally. To reverse 
this downward tendency is to reverse the entire man. The 
spirit follows the thought, as the thought is controlled b} 
physical motions or absence thereof. This turning of the 
operations upward is done only by an increased and extreme 
action of the brain and nervous system. To charge the 
brain with blood and increase its magnetic power and action, 
breathe deeply and constantly through the nostrils — deep, 
slow, long, drawn inspirations, followed by rapid expirations ; 
this, persisted in, becomes in time, a habit, which the soul 
carries on even in sleep, till the barriers of sense give way, 
and clairvoyance is the result ; but beware of insanity if the 
mind does not expand first by proper training. 

The higher mind ought to rule, but unfortunately in most 
men, body lords it over mind, lust rules the world. The 
man who by will rules and controls his passions is nicely 
balanced ; the man who by will puts his passions to sleep so 
that they need no watching, has entered already the realm 
of power ; he has withdrawn the sexual fires from the lower 
extremities to his brain, and only needs to go one step more 
to become one of the "Hlmninati," i. e., provided he is a 



WILL-OULTURE. 187 

passionate man. (" A passionless man is an infernal mon- 
ster, not only in this, but in all the starry worlds of space. 55 
P. B. Randolph.) 

Passion being held and controlled by will, and the fires 
of sex confined to the body, gradually draws together 
towards the mind ; the thoughts collect and run together 
like a stream of water — shallow and wide at first, spreading 
away into swamps and marshes — stagnant pools which send 
up scum and filth, redolent of disease and crime, which, 
when a channel is dug, collects its waters into a murmuring 
brook, and gradually becomes a mighty river, purifying its 
waters by its own motion. The will digs the channel, and 
gradually draws the thoughts therein. It is hard at first, 
for they love the freedom of wildwood and slough, where 
they can bask and sun themselves, and evaporate to nothing; 
they wash away the tiny banks many times, but the de- 
termined will builds and rebuilds until the banks are 
mountains high, and the river a powerful stream, upon 
which the soul is born aloft, and angels, descending, meet 
the lone voyager with comfort and a purer spirit. 

The heights once ascended, the pathway ever remains, 
and each succeeding ascent becomes easier and easier. The 
way once learned, how strong and vigorous — how full of 
life, peace, rest, and joy, the scene becomes ! And yet how 
lowly, innocent and childish ! But " the way is a straight 
and a narrow way." If ye will abide, then dig deep the 
channel towards the Infinite, and train the fractious thoughts 
to run therein, until they shall love the way, and all other 
thoughts be tributary, and run and murmur along the 
valleys, down the gorges, and leap and dance into the bosom 
of Gor>. 

By concentration alone can man become powerful. Who 
can select one idea or thing, and think of that alone to the 
exclusion of all other thoughts^ for the space of five short 



1SS WILL-CULTUBE. 

minutes f Not many. Yet there are men who can take 
Oi ie thought, and follow its thread-like form for hours, as it 
winds its devious way, increasing as it goes, until it flows 
smoothly and noiselessly into the bosom of the snblime 
ocean of all truth, wherein they lave to their soul's content. 

Thought comes upon us like the dew upon the earth, but 
there are places where there is no dew ; but such are rocks 
or dry sands ; there are no flowers whose opening petals 
catch no dew. Some men are like a pool of water, redolent 
of filth, whose surface is covered with a yellowish- green 
scum, which comes not from the atmosphere, but from 
within. This scum settles upon the faces of men, thick 
here and thin there ; and also upon their lives. It may be 
seen sometimes with the naked eye ; at other times it 
flashes out like an adder's tongue, only to be seen with 
clairvoyant sight. 

This shows that man has only a little time ago come up 
out of the water ; that some have been out a longer time 
than others. There are lizards, snakes, frogs, toads, 
birds, spiders, and God only knows what, walking like men; 
but genuine men are scarce. They may be known by their 
lack of scum. Thought dissipates the scum, meditation 
annihilates it. 

Thought is the lightnings of God's universe. Men are 
lightning-rods. Some are so flat on the top of the head, 
that they attract nothing from the clouds that overshadow. 
Such attract from the earth ; their feet take root ; they 
cannot think, but vegetate and gather scum, the filthiest of 
which is Gold ! Others — and God knows how few they are 
— by their high, dome-like heads, attract spiritual forces, 
like the lightnings from the clouds, that shatter and break 
up the great deeps of their being, searing the outside so 
that no moss or scum will grow there. 

Thought burns ; it rolls and turns the brain inside out, 



WILL-CULTURE. 189 

giving no opportunity for stagnation. Not so the thought 
that comes from the earth ; this stagnates and increases 
filth. 

Purity is oneness. It is the nucleus around which 
centres all good. It is the magnet of the human soul, and 
holds our thoughts as one, centered upon the source of all 
purity, God. 

By thought, man meditates ; and meditation collects the 
spirit and draws it from outward things to the inner, and 
leads to abstraction — the forgetting of one's self. Abstrac- 
tion is the knife that cuts the chords which bind the soul to 
things. In other words, it finishes what thought begins 
and prepares the soul for flight. Magnetic sleep is its 
weakest phase. In this, the soul goes not out ; but the 
subject often has second sight, and sees to distant places ; 
his power depending upon the combined fires of the 
operator and himself. 

The spirit once concentrated and drawn within, is under 
the control of the will, and may be projected to any distance, 
and produce any effect desired, from the impressing of 
others, and healing the sick, up to moving substances, and 
the manifesting of phantoms. This is a dual power. 

In the culture of will, there are many things demanding 
attention. The tongue is said to be an unruly member ; 
hence the Eosicrucian adage, " Silence is strength." In 
much speaking is evil. Excitement is injurious ; and the 
tongue fires and excites passion. The calm man is the 
strong man. To control others, first control yourself. To 
control spirit, control your passions. 

To penetrate the secrets of others, expand your conscious- 
ness so as to come en rapport with their inmost being. To 
feel as others feel, and thus know them, you must rise above 
them, then descend to them. You are not superior to any- 






WILL-CULTURE. 



thing) only in your imagination. Culture this, then, by 
looking for pictures in it as in a mirror. 

To get en rapport with another, you must first see him in 
your imagination ; when seen command him, and he will 
obey. Clairvoyance is the road to power; but be so healthily 
or not at all. The soul is magical ; it can do anything ; 
produce anything, if it be large enough ; then study to ex- 
pand it. To project your spirit to any distance, and thus 
be seen and heard, make the spirit pure so that it can vie 
with the lightnings in space, and not stick like slime to 
objects on the way. 

Your soul cannot travel without a coach, the spirit is the 
coach. Make yourself double, and then all things are easy. 
To be divine, forget that you are the devil. Power dwells 
in silence, and in secrecy — more in thought than in word — 
more in a look than in a blow, if you know how to look. 
Many a man has sickened and died, or went crazy, at the 
wish of another. Many a man has been haunted to death 
by the strong will of another. Many a man has been made 
to do the right towards another by that other forgiving him 
his wrong long before. 

There is more power in forgiveness than in revenge, for 
the Gods avenge wrongs done to a good man. " Curses 
come home to roost," but they often do a sight of mischief 
before they come home, especially when the outraged soul 
curses. 

If you feel disgust, can you look love ? Can you look 
disgusted when you feel love ? If not, " try," for this is 
will-culture Can you hold your tongue when another calls 
you liar, thief, dog ? If not, you are no man ! Dogs snarl 
and bite at each other. How can you control your spirit, 
when your tongue is your master ? Can you be deaf while 
another raves ? — especially your wife ? If not, then you 
are under the control of others. Get out, man, by all 



WILL-CULTURE. 191 

means ! Enter into yourself , as in a " closet," and when 
you have shut your eyes to sight, and your ears to sound, 
and your nerves to sensation, you have then " shut the 
door," and " whatever you shall ask the Father in secret 
shall be done to you openly." This is worshiping " in 
spirit and in truth." 

Water is prolific ; all things gestate in water. The 
waters of the human soul are wrung out of the heart by real 
or imaginary wrongs. There is no growth without moisture. 
The dews that give life to vegetation are nature's tears. 
The great soul has a soft, weeping heart. The small soul 
has no tears in it to shed. 

The true child of " the shadow" has a heart that distills 
the dews of its sympathy unseen and unknown ; it weeps 
over the fallen, and suffers in secret at its powerlessness to 
relieve. It is often sad without knowing why. Even ad- 
versity in material things does not affect it, as the shadow 
which seems to brood, like the night, over it. 

When the shadow comes closest, — when the sun is obscured 
and the stars give no light, — when hope is well-nigh fled 5 — 
look up, child of the gloom! the light is near by, hidden in 
the deep folds of the cloud which rests like a pall over you. 
It is "the brooding" of the spirit you sense! — in your dis- 
gust of life and love — which is softening and making 
malleable your heart of stone ! When it is cultured enough, 
it will produce its fruit — the harvest is sure. Prepare your 
ground; then — dig deep the ditches for drainage and irriga- 
tion; draw together all your forces in order to pierce the 
gloom. 

The meditations recommended in this work as the true 
mental and spiritual discipline, are all of a gloomy and 
sombre character. The reason must be obvious to every 
thinker. There is a principle underlying this, in perfect 
harmony with the history of mankind. It is the thought- 



192 WILL-CULTURE. 

less who laugh. It is thought which takes the laughter 
out 01 a man and drapes him in black — symbol of the 
fire. 

Inspiration comes from despair; and hearts that weep are 
close upon the confines of a great joy, peace and rest. 
" Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted." 
:< God chasteneth whom he loveth," is a hard saying, but it 
is true. 

The trouble is, we do not know how to make use of the 
gloom, or the evil of life. We must learn to love the shadow, 
and to call it to ourselves by a mental effort. " Resist not 
evil," is apropos here. The great minds who have pierced 
the gloom, and handed down to mankind light and philoso- 
phy, that enables us to bridge the abyss of death, have been 
sad-hearted, weeping men. " Jesus wept," but we have no 
knowledge of his ever laughing. Gautama never smiled 
after he forsook a crown and his family, for the forest and 
the yellow robes of Asceticism. Appolonius, Socrates and 
Plato were not laughing men. 

There is a chamber of mourning, veiled and draped in 
black — in every human heart. We all retire to it at times, 
but the great- souled oftenest. Here the lurid world loses 
its glare, and all things become sombre ; the mind here loses 
its ferocity, and we go forth subdued. Alas for him who 
does not! Alas for him whose experience still leaves him 
hard within ! whose river of life sends out no waters, no 
tears, no dew of sadness and sympathy over weaknesses and 
follies, all too apparent! 

Such need much thought — nay! they need the blows and 
chastisement of fate — the earthquake, the tremblings of 
fear, the lightning's rending — the agony of disease, dis- 
appointment, hate, jealousy and despair, to compel them to 
think 

But let him, who would steer clear of these, provoke Irk 



WILL-CULTURE. 193 

soul to sadness, by meditations of such a nature as shall 
make him sick of life and its pleasures. If disease, weak- 
ness, pain or sickness bring lucidity of mind, it is well, but 
if death ensues without it, it is not so well. The mind 
should grow clearer and stronger from physical suffering, 
as the soul should expand her wings from mental anguish. 
To love the evil, and invite it, is to make it good. 

At a certain stage of development the soul becomes self- 
sustaining and productive of all that is needed. It becomes 
magical in its physical manifestations, as it is itself ; for the 
soul is a magical thing, and in its expansion — when it has 
filled the whole man with itself, after having become globu- 
lar — the body becomes a magical or a divine body. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

There is no limit to man's powers. That which seems a 
limit disappears or becomes an assistance in the reversal of 
the thought concerning it. All spiritual gifts come from 
the lifting of the veil crushed thick and opaque by object- 
ive things, or the piercing through of the sight, as a peer- 
ing under through an opening or rift in the rolling clouds 
of mundane things. 

This is about as clear as mud. Let me explain. Mental 
perception, intuition, or sight of the mind, is in the centre 
of the intellect; but it ordinarily is a dark sun, which 
becomes luminous by effort, as I have already set forth. 
Magnetism is a short road to lucidity, but the powers 
conferred are weak compared to those which come through 
effort. 

Magnetization is effected through passivity, and the 
vacating of thought and will. But it alternates, i. e., 
depends upon conditions which vary, and are sometimes 
favorable and sometimes unfavorable; and consequently, it 
is subject to spells — comes and goes, and leads everywhere 
and anywhere. It is good enough so far as it goes, but it 
does not go deep enough or far enough. 

The magnetic sleep is not at all dependent upon purity 
nor will-power. The luminosity I teach is not a sleep 
necessarily ; it is a blindness, or a cutting off of externals — 
a separation of the selfhood from outward influences by 
the sinking in or absorption of the voluntary powers, or the 



SOUL -POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 195 

growth of the involuntary to the voluntary, so that they 
become one. Mesmeric sleep is the first phase of it. 

Illumination, when once reached through and by effort of 
will, is always available. It makes and preserves uniform 
conditions; hence it has no "fits or starts,' 5 and makes no 
failures. "When perfect it cannot be lost, for it is death- 
proof, and its possessor is no subject of any power in ex- 
istence. He is an immortal being, having divine powers. 

There are many grades of powers, but I will first speak 
of sight: first, natural sight; second, clairvoyance; third, 
soul -sight. 

Clairvoyance has several degrees, while natural sight has 
only one. The first degree of clairvoyance is similar to 
natural sight: i. e., it sees only objects, such as reading 
blindfolded; seeing objects at a distance; seeing through 
matter, etc. It grows by practice, and its powers increase 
as the lucidity of the brain increases. 

But lucidity is simply dependent upon the purity of the 
spirit. Purity focalizes the spirit, but magnetization is a 
result of a mixture of spirits; hence it is what I have 
defined as impurity or an adulteration; It is exalting, as 
an intoxication; hence its effects are fleeting and ephemeral 
in proportion to the impurities involved. 

I do not mean by impurities, immoralities at all. Im- 
purity is in the mixture and appropriation of different auras, 
substances, magnetisms, etc. Magnetic subjects go into the 
condition and come out of it through the influence of an 
operator; sometimes in the form, but often out of it. In 
either case they are subject to the will of another, and the 
lucidity or exaltation of powers is a result of the union of 
spirits both in the form and out, which disappears when 
the subject is out of the condition. But the effects do not 
disappear so readily. Often the subjects are a prey to 



L96 OL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

vampires both in the form and out, under whose infernal 
" sucking" the life is slowly but surely sapped. 

This is the case with more people — especially women — 
than many imagine. There is a conscious and an unconscious 
vampirism. All mediums are not, however, subject to this 
curse. Space will not allow me to dwell upon this important 
subject, farther than to add that mediumship is not confined 
to the ranks of spiritualism. Nine-tenths of all the crimes 
committed are due to vampirism. A vampire is not 
necessarily a disembodied spirit ; we are just as much spirits 
now as we will ever be, and all the power that any spirit 
may have we can have, if we only know how to develop and 
use it. For that which is not in us cannot exist long as 
ours. 

Clairvoyance is a mental power, and as the mind becomes 
more and more luminous by practice and focalization of the 
spirit, " spiritual gifts " are joined to it, as fruit is joined to 
a blossom. It is not my object to specify and define these 
gifts further than is necessary to elucidate my subject. 

Vampirism is one spirit preying upon another. It differs 
from obsession in degree only. Clairvoyance becomes 
deeper and deeper by practice, until it enters somewhat 
into the penetralia of things, in which its subject becomes 
alive to influences — aches, pains, physical and mental states, 
aspirations, loves, longings, etc. It is now becoming near 
to another power, viz : the perception of spirit forms, faces, 
and the hearing of voices, or clairaudience. This is, of 
course, a higher power than mere sight of objects. 

Spirit pours out in look and gesture, but in speech more 
than in any other manner. In fact, speech is the highest 
expression of spirit, and it is more susceptible to culture 
than looks or gestures, and leads to greater depths of being ; 
and is moreover, more reliable, because it does not lead to 
that idolatry which the sight of beauty and grandeur 



SOUL POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS 197 

always does. The beholding of spiritual beings by clair- 
voyants has led many into the erroneous idea that they have 
beheld God, the ineffable One, when, in fact, such sight 
may be a conjuration of the will of some strong operator. 
Phantoms seldom speak; to be reliable, sight and hearing 
should go together. 

The deepest clairvoyance is that where objects, both 
material and spiritual, are passed by as of no account; and 
the ineffable glories of soul-realm glimpsed. This is a 
sight of spirit, as fire only, and not as objects. This fire or 
spirit finds a voice suited to the ear of him who will listen. 

Zoroaster said : " When you see the fire, listen to the 
voice of the fire! " It was in view of this truth that Moses 
enacted laws against the communicating with spirits ; and 
in order to preserve purity in the mediums (or priests), 
tried to confine it to the tribe of Levi. It was for this pur- 
pose (purity) that celibacy was enjoined by Buddha. 

Beyond this mundane sphere — beyond the realm of 
spiritual things — is infinite knowledge and power. And he 
who is able to pierce through the shadow which things 
cast, sees the glories of the spirit-worlds. But this is all. 
Forms do not appear from beyond " the abode of the gods;" 
but he who can visit the highest abode may hear the echoes 
of busy feet, and the whisperings of incomprehensible and 
unutterable things. This power I call soul -sight ; but it is 
not a sight of things, but of the fire of principles. This 
power is within all spiritual powers. As the soul is the 
inmost of the man, so is soul -sight the inmost of intuition. 

Clairvoyance, psychometry, and clairaudience, are all de- 
veloped by contact, or the coming en rapport with objects. 
Their field of operations is in the spirit of things ; but soul- 
sight is developed by holding the spirit aloof from other 
things, spirits, etc., and the losing sight of all distinctions 
or differences of things. It is the distinctness of things 



198 BOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

which scatters the spirit and confuses thought and mind. 
We know nothing, because there axe so many things to leant. 

e think not clearly because we see so much. 

He who socks the absolute loses sight of the differences 
of things, and passing inward, reaches the spirit thereof ; 
but instead of entering en rapport therewith, passes deeper 
still beyond all distinctions and differences to the oneness 
of being — in fact, to the supernatural of his own being. 
" He that hath a mind to think, let him think ; " for, indeed, 
it is thought which leads to hearing of the "Word. This is 
the real meaning of John : "In the beginning was the 
"Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was 
God." 

He who passes in thought through and beyond things, 
hears "the Word of God." For God dwells in the inmost 
recesses of all being, hidden away from all mortal sight ; 
hence the necessity of destroying the differences of things 
in the mind. The differences among men constitute hell. 
How easily we are all brothers when we forget our differ- 
ences. They make enemies of us — enemies to each other 
and to God. How harmonious we would be if there were 
no distinctions. Of a truth, this is the road to God. 

The man who fixes not his attention upon differences of 
race, sex, conditions, opinions, names, etc., is a great-souled 
man, and looks with indifference upon the small things 
which agitate and disturb mankind. He can lay claim to 
kinship with God, who loves all alike. Aye, and he holds 
sweet converse with God in the depths of his own all-know- 
ing INTUITIVE SOUL ! 

This is the source of all inspiration. God finds voice in 
the soul, and intuition is but the faint echoes thereof, as it 
vibrates along the dark and noisome crypts of being. Alas I 
for him who "hath no ears to hear;" nor "eyes to see" — 
his darkness must be intense indeed. 



SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 199 

Let him who would reach the regal powers of the soul sit 
in circles. For in the mingling of magr^etisms is an intense 
and fierce combustion or war of spirits produced, in which 
conflagration, great and rapid changes take place; during 
which the soul begins to make motions as of a thing com- 
ing to life ; it is drawing itself together into shape, leaving 
the atoms of the body. Motions are usually felt first in the 
hands, which vibrate somewhat like when in contact with a 
magnetic battery; this sensation extends in time to every 
part of the body in some persons ; in others, it is limited to 
the hands, arms or head; it deepens in intensity till the 
nerves begin to twitch and jerk. 

Now, when you have got thus far, there are two roads 
open for you. If you wish mediumship with any of its 
multitudinous phases, with a band of helpers and a guide, 
just sit passive and " let it jerk;" don't expect or be anxious 
for anything, but let yourself alone, fully resigned to 
accept whatever may come without doubt or criticism. 
Think of nothing as nearly as possible, and above all 
resist no impulse of thought, word or action, " Follow your 
impulses" is the law of mediumship. 

But if you choose the soul road, you must now brace 
yourself for an effort; that effort is resistance — resist all 
impulses and all motions of the nerves and muscles; 
instead of passivity, grasp yourself as with your hands, 
holding fast in your mind or imagination with the same 
tension of the nerves as if you were holding something, 
but without any muscular contraction — this while sitting in 
the circle. 

To become spiritual, cultivate mind, for this is the door 
which must, indeed, open before you can walk out into the 
realms of power. To cultivate mind, increase the activity 
of the nervous system and its source — the brain. Draw the 
blood to the brain, by deep breathing and the fixing of the 



200 BOUL-POWBRS LSD SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

thought upon the object in view. Magnetize yourself one 
hour every evening by taking hold of the left thumb with 
the right thumb and forefinger, and pressing gently, enough 
to keep the attention fixed upon it. and think of one thing, 
e word your own name, if nothing else — saying it 
r and over to yourself constantly. In a short time your 
object will become fixed and constant in your thoughts, and 
the soul will begin its work. But remember that each effort 
you make upward will be followed by a revulsion downward, 
and you will find yourself becoming amorous. Resist this 
impulse, as all impulses : in the course of time, you will see 
clouds, flashes of light, and faces or forms will peer out of 
the gloom at you, or form in the clouds. 

Pay no attention to these things, but keep right on with 
your exercise. There are many more methods which I am 
not at liberty to disclose. Things of a physical nature 
assist the physical, inasmuch as physical nature yields most 
readily to such things as are like itself, or one degree re- 
moved therefrom. To illustrate : a brute yields to the 
force of a club, but when he is trained a word controls him. 
So with mankind : some need kings, and soldiers with 
bayonets, to keep them within humanity's realm ; others 
stay there naturally, for they understand its unspoken and 
unwritten laws. For babes, milk and baby-talk ; for 
children, play-houses and stories ; for youth, the dance and 
the opera ; for middle age, the rush and rattle, the clash 
and commotion of business ; for mature man, thought, 
reason, spiritual things. These are nature's methods of 
culture. 

Nature cannot be forced out of one mood into another. 
Ask yourself, " Where does my love lead me ? " and nature 
or your own soul will tell you truly. If you long to be- 
come spiritual, begin at once, and that gradually. " Nature 
allows none to overleap her barriers ; they must be beaten 



SOUL POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 201 

dotvn." Don't ask God to teach you, but learn of such as 
are in harmony with you, even if it be the devil. 

The basis of all understanding is mutual sympathy ex- 
isting between the teacher and the taught — the actor and 
the acted upon. To the material in thought, desire and 
action, are the matter-of-fact in nature adapted. They are 
like it, and hence the spiritual is too far removed from them 
to be their direct teachers ; such need physical training, 
and to them are physical means necessary. Hence, to such 
(and in fact, all men are of this class more or less), in ad- 
dition to deep breathing, the bath, in cold, magnetic water; 
a complete and radical change in the diet ; rest instead of 
exercise ; thought instead of talk ; tears instead of laughter; 
darkness instead of light ; emotion instead of motion — 
these and more are necessary to train the physical before 
the spiritual can come forth. 

Spirit is formless, and yet not altogether so. There is a 
form within these bodies of ours, which is spirit, and yet it 
hath no form until detached, as it were, from the flesh. All 
development is a loosening of the spirit from the flesh and 
the loves thereof ; and this loosening is the embryotic 
organization of the spiritual body carried on and fully per- 
fected. 

Resist muscular and nervous motion with all your power 
of will. Keep calm. Never allow any circumstance to 
agitate or disturb you ; for here in the degree of motion it 
is that demons and evil-disposed spirits take advantage of 
your sensitive and expansive condition, and enter in — first, 
the nervous system, and secondly, the mind, and control 
you to your destruction. 

Music sets you on fire, and you want to dance, sing or 
shout : keep silent — " silence is strength. " Never debate ! 
But let the one object be to keep calm, self-possessed and 
cool. This is the beginning of self-control and power. It 



202 SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

is concentration. Think, meditate, read and study — but 
keep silent. Remember there are beings around you who 
come in connection with you through words, sounds, 
motions, etc., who, without them, remain ignorant of your 
object and condition. There are demons and spirits who 
cannot read the mind, but who can hear and see. 

It is when thrown off our guard, being carried away by 
strange sensations, thoughts, impulses, motions and emo- 
tions, that we are seized upon by the above or below, and 
carried away from ourselves, as it were, from our equipoise 
or balance — self-consciousness dethroned : and we rise or 
fall according to predisposition. The falling into acts silly 
and criminal, or less than those of the normal state, is 
termed " obsession ;" but this, like most names, is an effort 
to explain that which we do not understand ; an assumption 
cf knowledge ; an excuse we make to ourselves for our 
ignorance ; a distinction made ; a difference visible in ex- 
tremes, as good and evil, which flow into one another as one; 
but to us, and for us, obsession is as real as the evil, and 
must be avoided. 

Since I commenced writing this book, this subject was 
forced upon my attention by a series of articles in some one 
of the spiritual papers ; I cared nothing for the differences 
of opinion in regard to obsession ; but feeling the necessity 
of progress in the avoidance of evil, by some persons at 
least, I sought for a sure, safe and certain preventive of it ; 
I pondered several days upon this subject with no satisfac- 
tory result. One night, alone in my tent, a wave of loneli- 
ness and sadness swept over me. This had no visible or 
mundane cause — my health was excellent, business was 
good, money was plenty (for I had " a dime in my pocket,*' 
which is enough as long as it lasts), but nevertheless I was 
low-spirited ; I could neither think nor write, so throwing 
down my pen I paced up and down until wearied ; I threw 



SODL POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 203 

myself upon my bed to sleep ; my mind became tranquil as 
my body became at rest, and this idea of obsession came 
over me as a problem unsolved. To solve it, I knew of only 
two ways : One was to come en rapport with the spirit oj 
obsession, and hence become obsessed myself in order to 
know by experience all about it, so as to show how to avoid 
it; the other was by inspiration. 

The first was repugnant to all my thoughts and feelings. 
Under all circumstances I wish to be myself — and only 
that; so I turned aside and repelled the spirit by the 
thoughts of my own individual selfhood, and the determi- 
nation to be only myself. There are lights, clouds, flashes, 
faces and forms here at this condition of the mind; but I, 
in following my thought, passed them by as of no account. 
Laughing faces, hideous faces, and monstrous forms looked 
out of the light at me, and as I passed by, mocked and 
scowled. Gradually the lights paled, the faces grew dim 
and finally disappeared, leaving me in intense and opaque 
darkness. Pulsating, throbbing, vibrating with strange and 
weird sensations, I glided along down the corridors of the 
soul as one falling, and slowly, oh ! so slowly, losing myself. 
All at once, from out the darkness, and close to me, a voice 
low and soft sounded in my ear : " To avoid obsession, 
keep the body positive and the mind negative." The voice 
came so suddenly, and was so close to me, that I was 
startled and driven back to myself. There I lay all vibrating 
with ecstatic emotions, altogether out of the ordinary nature 
of things, with the words engraved in letters of fire upon 
my consciousness. To me this was a new idea ; it was a 
revelation of a wonderful truth, and I cast about for the 
logic of it, which is this : 

Ordinarily the body is negative, and hence receptive to 
impressions — physical, atmospherical, and spiritual. The 
first effect of magnetism is to increase this negative state of 



204 SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

the body; hence, it becomes very impressible and very 
liable to take on the conditions of others, both in the mun- 
dane and the spiritual. The will is the cause of all posi- 
tiveness of mind, body and spirit. By its force it is repul- 
sive, and holds at a distance things foreign and injurious. 
Now. in passivity, the will relaxes the tension of the nerves, 
and they are unstrung; in which state, spirits both good 
and evil can enter into the inactive sphere of the spirit, and 
thus get a lodgment from which to control, in time, the 
mind, and subjugate the will. 

Now, if by any process the body can be kept positive, 
the spirit is rendered so, also; and hence, no spirits but 
those of a negative character will be attracted. Remember, 
it is only positive spirits that seize upon and obsess mortals. 
They are the repulsive and the deficient — the empty of 
sympathy and all elements of greatness. The law is for 
the positive to enter into and control the negative, i. e., to 
beget therein their own devilishness. Now, in rendering 
the mind negative by constantly keeping down its excitabili- 
ties, it is elevated by the motive or object in view; and as 
mind can only be acted upon by mind, and is not a recepta- 
cle of anything but ideas, minds of a high order, such as 
have ideas to give, are attracted, and instill their ideas or 
thoughts of a positive nature into the negative mind; thus 
leading the mind upward without disturbing the will in 
the least. Indeed, such spirits increase the individuality 
by assisting instead of controlling. Negative spirits never 
do harm. 

It only remains for me to explain how the body can be 
rendered positive, and the mind negative. The tranquil, 
peaceful, inoffensive mind is negative. This idea of con- 
trolling mind instead of nerves and muscles, engages the 
entire attention and will ; for the mind is not rendered 
tranquil save by constant watchfulness, and the keeping 



SOUL- POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 205 

down of thos6 passions which disturb, agitate, and thus 
cause filth to rise up as impurities of the blood and spirit. 
The will thus engaged in rendering the mind negative or 
tranquil, renders the body positive at the same time, 
because two negatives cannot exist together, neither can 
two positives. 

I am aware it is a reversal of nature's methods, but he 
who would rise up to power must rise in the mind, or not 
at all. God dwells in all things alike, but those who seek 
him cannot find him so readily in some things or conditions 
as in others. Remember what I have previously said about 
diet. Don't be in a hurry, for all things grow slowly. 

Weakness is only an argument in favor of strength, and 
the small measure of the spirit meted out to us here only 
indicates the vastness of its extent and power. The impossi- 
bilities of our infirmities indicate the possibilities of those 
who are firm. Then doubt not, waver not, but keep 
steadily, coolly on, up the mountains of difficulty, each one 
you surmount only reveals more clearly to you the possibili- 
ties of your nature. The value of things is in their use. 
Spiritual gifts are of use just now, in the " a-b-c " of man's 
growth — in the awakening of man's dull senses to the 
recognition of a future existence and its nature; but when 
such becomes universal, as it must in time, what will be 
their use ? 

The world has been as far advanced in spiritual things 
in the long ago as now — and probably much further; but 
what use was it to them ? They had their oracles and their 
temples, and gods and guides without number; but all this 
did not prevent retrogression. 

The ground must now all be traveled over again. Again 
must the priesthood be organized, the temples built, the 
altars reared, and the fires lighted; and what is all this for? 
Oh, the patience of the Infinite ! In vain are the choicest 



206 BOUL-K)WERS AND BPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

gifts of heaven showered upon unthankful and unthinking 
man! They are all prostituted to devilish ends and aims. 
The choicest oracles of the olden time led opposing armies 
to the slaughter of each other. The prophets of the Lord 
anointed kings and watched over the welfare of one nation 
to the detriment of another. 

Gifts were all prostituted to the attainment of material 
wealth, grandeur, glory and fame. All powers were bent 
and warped to the creation and perpetuation of monstrous 
distinctions among men, by reason of which war and out- 
rage are the rule, and peace and harmony very rare 
exceptions. Where now are they? A slow, lingering 
decay — an awful disease of the very vitals, or the violent 
conflagration of their own passions hath swept them away. 
The wand of a magician hath waved across the sky and they 
are not ! But they have left the diseases which they 
created behind them in the ruins of their former glory and 
worship. Their spirituality is only a ruin. 

In vain do men teach and preach; the world goes on in 
the old beaten track, and religion follows the lead. In vain 
did the lowly Jesus heal the sick and teach the ignorant. 
In vain did he cry from the mountains and temples, of a 
rare good life here, free from disease and death. The Jews 
heard him not — and now — even now ! with all our boasted 
progress and civilization the word of a God is prostituted 
to mean something he never intended. " If ye believe ye 
shall not die," is enunciated in words which can have no 
other meaning. 

If he had meant what is now preached as the gospel, it 
was as easy to have said " He that believeth shall not go to 
hell" as to have said what he did. His teachings from 
beginning to end show his mission to have been to teach 
mankind how to live humane lives so as to be healthy and 
happy. His healing of the sick shows that the gospel was 



SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 207 

that of physical health and the salvation from disease. His 
raising of the dead, and his own resurrection, show further 
that death was a thing to be overcome by living a true life. 
"And these signs shall follow those that believe," etc. 
(See Luke xvi, 17, 18). In another place he says, 
" Greater works than these shall ye do, because I go to the 
Father." 

Of what avail are spiritual gifts if their utmost power is 
simply to demonstrate another life without joining this life 
thereto as one? It must be evident to every thoughtful 
I person that the object of these manifestations is the eleva- 
tion of the race. And wherein can this be effected, save in 
the power to enjoy ? Where does this power reside, save 
in health ? In vain did Jesus heal the sick if he did not 
teach the way to continued health ! In vain did he raise 
the dead if he did not show the way to remain alive ! If 
they die not in the spirit-world, what need of death here ? 

All the revelations heretofore given have been of an im- 
mortal life in some other state of existence. But I tell you 
of an immortality of this life. I believe Jesus taught the 
way of its attainment, but it was not understood, I may 
not be able to point the whole road, but what I have said 
already must contain the principles of it in part. Man 
creates himself and all the essentials of his being — his 
health, happiness, heavens and hells. But hell comes from 
mis- directed effort and heaven from ivell-directed effort. 

Things superior descend as a revelation in answer to a 
demand, which revelation is an idea — this is enlightenment. 
No matter how, or in what manner an idea comes, if it is of 
a superior character, it is of the light. Hence it is enlighten- 
ing, and leads upwards. Man must first have an idea of 
what he wants before he can create conditions superior to 
things that now are. 

The demand ahvays precedes the supply. Is there a de- 



•JOS 



SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 



mand for a continuous and happy life here on this globe ? 
la there a demand for power to create forms of matter for 
use by effort of will, without the toil and demoniac scramble 
after the necessaries of life ? There will be a demand 
when man is satisfied of its possibility. Then multiply the 
mediums ! The spirit-world is drawing near. Soon, 
spiritual beings will walk among us as men — will heal the 
sick, cast out devils, multiply bread for the hungry, and gold 
for the greedy, till it shall lose its value, and man turns his 
attention to the attainment of spiritual powers and gifts. 
The demand for self-government and peace has already 
gone up to the Gods, and the answer is coming. The 
bomb which carried Alexander of Russia into hell, or 
out of it, was God-sent, in answer to the prayer of many an 
earnest soul. A full and complete answer is at hand, when 
the world shall be free, and every man shall be his own 
king, priest, bishop, pope, and God ! All hail to the 
mediums and to spiritual gifts of all grades and kinds ! 
For here is freedom. Let gifts be no longer prostituted 
by individual ambition, nor to the building of thrones or 
national glory ! Let the universal anthem be, " peace on 

EARTH, GOOD-WILL TO MEN !" 

Let us work mentally and spiritually, so that the new 
temple shall not be made with hands of material sub- 
stance, but a temple in these bodies — a divine body, where- 
in God shall be conscious to each one of us. Let us rear 
altars in our own hearts — altars of love-worship, needing 
no typical sacrifices of the blood of animals or of men. Let 
us light the fires of the spirit thereon, which are unquench- 
able and eternal. 

Man's desires for immortality have been mis -directed, in- 
asmuch as his revelations have been of a future life, and 
not of this. The time has come when revelations must be 
made of this life and its possibilities — of the present, and 



SOUL-POWEKS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 209 

not of the future. The perfect life of to-day admits no 
doubt nor fear of to-morrow. A perfect life here is as fully 
and completely immortal as any life in any world. The 
idea of living for the future is a false light ; it is a material 
light of "Lucifer, Son of the morning." Happiness is not 
of to-morrow, nor of any future time or world. It is to-day 
or not at all. All life is of to-day, and the present. The 
future never comes. 

Salvation is from disease. If you die of disease, you 
wake up on the other side diseased ; you have to be cured 
there before you have fullness of life. The same knowledge 
that saves you there will save you here. Then why not 
have that knowledge ? The self- same power that feeds the 
angels in heaven will feed you here, if it is yours. Then 
why not open your soul to its reception ? Heaven is in no 
particular place. It is within you if you want it there, 
with all its angels and powers — aye ! and its immortal life, 
also. 

"In union there is strength." "Again, I say unto you, 
that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything 
that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father 
which is in Heaven." (Matthew xviii, 9.) 

This agreement spoken of here is not merely of the mind 
— it is a union or oneness of spirit, wherein power is multi- 
plied in an unknown ratio. The spirit of one is not as an- 
other — they differ in quality, hence there is no agreement: 
even where minds agree, the spirits do not. Hence the 
possibility of the truth of the above is in the agreement. 
Agreement is the kingdom of power. The union of two 
is of higher quality than one alone; and the more spirits 
there are in the union the greater is the power. But the 
difficulty deepens when it is made known that two male 
spirits cannot agree. Agreement is of the male and female. 
Herein Divinity appears, and power to accomplish all things 



210 SOUL-POWERS ANH SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

is manifest Bui union of spirit is preceded by mental 
agreement 

Now. the demand for immortal power and life on this 
earth must first be a mental agreement, which, in its per- 
Lon and harmony, will give birth to union or agreement 
of spirit touching that thing. But look you ! Woman is 
not free ! Alas for the dawn of light ! AVoman a slave ! 
Prostituted by man's selfishness and lust ! How can the 
prayers of such a monster be answered ? " Verily, I say 
unto you, 7 ' "the prayer of the wicked availeth nothing." 

Little can be effected without freedom. But let us do 
what we can in the union of niinds. Spirit works by 
methods beyond the mind*, hence its laws cannot be com- 
prehended by the mind. " The kingdom of heaven cometh 
not by observation," i. e., not through laws of mentality. 
Spirits are unable to explain it. I believe material is 
evolved from the medium, and combined with subtle ele- 
ments in the atmosphere by the effort of the will of some 
powerful spirit, or by the union of several, into flowers, ap- 
paritions, spirit- forms, clothing, etc., etc., and that it will 
yet be demonstrated that materialized spirits are evolved 
from the medium. 

But no matter how it is done, the power that can make 
a flower, or a piece of cloth, can make gold, fruit, bread, or 
anything else desired. All that is requisite are conditions, ' 
and knowledge, or faith, or will, or whatever you feel like 
calling the power. These manifestations are in their in- 
fancy as yet, for, although as old as man, they have probably 
never been properly understood, or so universally under- 
stood by spirits of a high and intelligent order as now. 
They are experimenting, and they understand fully the 
value of co-operation or harmony. The much-talked-of con- 
ditions of spiritual manifestations are nothing more nor less. 

Jesus, in view of this principle, selected twelve Apostles 



SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 211 

who were as harmonious with him as men can well be. 
But the Scriptures are mostly silent in reference to the 
important part the women who followed him took in the 
work he did. It is doubtful if he ever explained this idea, 
to them; probably this is the esoteric part of the Gospel 
which was never written. It is reasonable to infer as much, 
for the early Christians had everything in common, thus 
striving to destroy distinctions and to perfect a union that 
should enable them to carry out the intuitions and work of 
Jesus. (See Acts i v., 32.) "And the multitude of them 
that believed were of one heart and one soul : neither said 
any of them that aught of the things which he possessed 
was his own; but they had all things common : " that is, 
the writer thought they were of "one heart and soul" 
because they tried to be so. 

Why they gradually lost the gifts of the Spirit must be 
evident to every reasonable^ thoughtful mind. The agree- 
ment or union was lost through the gradual growth of dis- 
tinctions and differences: — first, of mind; second, of spirit; 
and third, of material substances (property). Had they 
perfected the union, instead of proselyting, they would have 
established the church upon a " rock," and afterwards the 
growth would have been a steady, healthy, upward growth ; 
neither would they have wanted for anything, for the king- 
dom of harmony contains all things. "First seek the 
kingdom of heaven: then all other things shall be added 
unto you." 

This idea of union is corroborated in our own time, in 
many ways, notably so in the work of Dr. Hotohkiss, of 
St. Louis, Mo., known as " The Dirty Doctor, " " The 
Snapping Doctor, " " Color Doctor, " and, as he terms him- 
self, "King of Magnetism." He has performed as many, 
if not more, miraculous cures of diseases than any healer of 
our day. In 1871, he had six apostles, termed by him 



212 BOUL-POWEKS ANP SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

"Radiators," who sat in a row, at times silent and dumb, 
behind the class of sick which Hotchkiss treated by simply 
snapping his fingers. At other times, " as the spirit moved 
them. " they joined m the snapping, or rolled and wallowed 
in the dirt of his floor, which was never swept. They lived 
apart from the world as much as possible, and were celibates; 
but Hotchkiss had a wife and several other women shut up 
from contact with other people — as nuns are kept in a 
convent. 

To show how particular he was in regard to his women I 
relate the following: "Wishing to see Dr. Hotchkiss, and 
not finding him at his office, I called at his house ; a woman 
opened the door and asked what I wished. I explained, 
not finding the Doctor at home, I wished to leave a letter 
for him, which I offered to her. She drew back as if it 
were poison, and closing the door in my face, told me to 
shove the letter under his office door. 

"\Ye know very little of the subtle influence of spirit, or 
of the effect that the inoculation of one spirit into another 
produces. The shaking of hands and kissing are sometimes 
injurious. Emma Hardinge visited the Doctor, and has 
testified to his wonderful magnetic power. He still lives in 
St. Louis, a very old man, but as lithe and supple as a boy ; 
a man of good education and of fine intellectual powers ;. 
courteous and affable at times, but sometimes very rude. 
His " Radiators " left him in 1871 or 1872, 1 think, and he 
afterwards had smallpox; still he heals the sick, claiming 
that he cannot die till Christ comes. He is not a spiritual- 
ist, and is as bitter towards spiritualism as any bigot can 
be. His age is unknown, but undoubtedly it is very great — 
so great that he has been termed " the wandering Jew " 
He is the dirtiest man I ever saw. I might write a not very 
small book upon his eccentricities, customs, antics and 
cures; but he never explains the philosophy of them to any- 



SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 213 

one; or if he explains anything to-day, he explains it 
differently another day. I am satisfied that the secret of 
his power is fast locked in the walls where the women are 
kept. 

The power that comes of perfect union or harmony is 
wonderful. God dwells in it ! " "Where two or three are 
gathered together in my name" — or in oneness of heart, 
mind, soul and spirit — " there am I in the midst." The 
principle is what we need — the name or the man is nothing; 
but for those incapable of comprehending a principle, the 
name is of vital importance. Do not destroy a man's idols, 
if he is incapable of reason. 

The spirit, by union, ascends higher than if alone; and 
God descends upon its tide to bless not merely those who 
unite, but all the world in which they move. Alas ! for the 
angularities and differences that destroy us. The secret of 
union is in self -harmony as a foundation: this is good, but 
~two is better; but if the two be male and female, it is best. 
Magnetism leads thereto. 

It behooves me to add, in this connection, that the age of 
wrong and bloodshed is nearly past. The dawn of a divine 
government is at hand, wherein the fundamental principle 
of government is for the moral benefit of the person punished 
and not primarily for the protection of society. As a tender 
and kind father corrects his child for the child's good, and 
not to vindicate his power or authority in the least, so will 
society deal with its weak members. 

Crime will be treated as a disease of the mind, and hospi- 
tals will take the place of jails, penitentiaries and scaffolds. 
Instead of physicians, chaplains and guards, there shall be 
a few chosen ones who, united in mind and soul, shall pour 
the psychological power of the angel-ivorld upon criminals 
of all classes, and they shall be healed; for under this 
influence certain organs of the brain may be rendered 



214 SOUL-POWERS AND SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 

inoperative, and other organs may be called into activity; 
thus the morally weak may be strengthened, and the 
depraved shall be made to loathe and despise their deprav- 
ity: this can be done in secret without the criminal's 
knowledge. 

AY ho shall lead off in this great moral work ? Psychom- 
otor will reveal the peculiarities of children and adults, and 
those needing treatment will be treated and trained with- 
out the rod and the dunce-cap. There will be no escape 
for the criminal, for the mediums will point them out — for 
their good primarily, and secondly, for the good of society. 
The weak will be known before a manifestation of weak- 
ness — or, rather, the commission of crime. The time will 
come, and that speedily, when from the Temples of the 
Rose Cross such power shall be breathed out upon the 
people, so gently, and so peacefully, that none shall be dis- 
posed to do any one a wrong. 

The whole people shall join in one grand Psychologic An 
effort to banish disease and death from the land. Who 
shall say it will not be done ? Who will be the first to 
enroll their names among the Temple-builders and 
pioneers of the millenium ? 

Who is there, of all who read this book, that are willing 
to " Try ?" This is the magic watchword, Try ! The 
principles conveyed in the foregoing pages are sufficient to 
form a basis of union, and he or she who feels in harmony 
therewith, and is willing to " Try," will find " The Door" to 
such union indicated in the dedication of this work. To all 
such I say : " Knock, and it shall be opened unto you \ 
Seek, and ye shall find !" 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SPIRITUALITY. 

There is a spirit pervading the universe, known under 
the appellation of God, which is embodied in man as well as 
in everything else that exists. But particularly to man is it 
given to call the spirit, which is individualized as himself, 
"My Spirit." We speak of our spirits, souls, bodies, etc., 
as we do of our property. And so they are. We may lose 
our spirits as we do our property. 

In the creation of man God is reversed — or He has turned 
man loose, to range as he will with his back towards the 
Creator. Hence the cry, " Turn ye ! turn ye ! for why will 
you die." This is the reason why man has no knowledge 
of the future — light is behind and he has only memory, or 
experience, a3 his guide. God is within him, but he is 
all unconscious thereof, and looks to outside nature for all 
that he can hope for and fear. Truly he must turn — if he 
would find the source of his life — and examine himself. 

We all have spirits, but none of us are spirits — and never 
will be ; for the moment the body dies, and the soul has left it, 
the spirit hovering around, and enveloping the soul, begins 
a process of organization of another form. This other 
form is material. True, it is in another condition — and is 
invisible to us, but it may not be in an apparitional state 
at all — nor in so close a relationship to this earth as to 
come under its laws. 

Furthermore, the life the person has led has an effect 
upon his spirit ; and in most cases the soul has not attained 



216 SPIRITUALITY. 

sufficient consciousness to enable it to control and better 
its organization -consequently, it comes into another state 
of being in a worse condition than this. But soul and mind 
in union — consciousness remains, and the soul has control 
of the spirit to enable it to improve a little upon its organi- 
zation. In most men soul and mind are too far apart. 
The mind wrapped up in mundane affairs is a blind mind — 
it dies at death, or shortly thereafter for want of use. 
There are no spirits except embodied spirits. Anger does 
not exist except in some form — Love is Infinite Spirit — the 
creator and sustainer of all that exists. But such spirits 
as pride, lust, anger, etc., are simply love fallen from its 
pure state. Hence the legend of a fallen angel is founded 
in truth. Love reversed is man's self-love. Without this 
self-love no spirit of anger, pride, etc., etc., could exist, for 
these dark spirits all spring from self-love. 

So it may be readily seen that love is the creator — the 
fountain — and that all that flows therefrom must be of the 
same nature — and all things are love in some form or 
other. A man may love himself with such intensity as to 
finally hate himself, and his very existence. " The sweetest 
things make the strongest acid." 

The warmest friends often become the very worst 
enemies. The hottest love, when cold, produces the dead- 
liest hate. Love is the only creator — our Father, our 
providence, our life. 

Love being a spirit, he who hath the most of it is the 
most spiritual in its highest sense, because this spirit is 
boundless — while all other spirits are limited and finite, for 
that which falls must find the centre, when it loses itself in 
the universal darkness of non-conditions — inertia. 

Lust is Lucifer ("son of the morning") fallen love — 
or a fallen angel. How does love fall ? The same as the 



SPIRITUALITY. 217 

sunlight falls into matter — or becomes matter. (See chap- 
ter 1st.) 

So our spirit centres in an inner sun, from which it 
radiates. This sun is self-love. This is the centre of our 
individuality. Its light or life is pure at first — L e., white, 
without color or shade — but being involved in circumstances 
of a sensuous nature, it soon gets broken or refracted, and 
we begin to love things foreign, or outside of ourselves. 
This draws the central sun from a fixed or stationary state 
into an orbit — or in other words it has fallen from the soul 
into mind. 

Now, the love of a virgin soul is a pure, fixed star of the 
first magnitude — a sun shedding an immortal light — which 
when it has fallen away to others, has become of the mind — - 
of thought, calculation, vanity, pride, etc. — a wandering 
star of lesser magnitude — shedding a weaker light — and 
finally falling into darkness, or the body — and here known 
as lust, or physical love — still sinking lower down it 
becomes disgust, hate, and all that is devilish. 

Strange that the beautiful Angel Love, Spirit — should 
have fallen so low as to become dark matter ! Yet so it is. 
From mind the descent of spirit into matter is rapid and 
easy. Love is not of the mind until it falls thereunto. The 
world is full of mental love — and also of crime ; but soul 
love is very scarce. 

Spirituality is now a mere name. Let me tell you what 
it is not It is not materiality — nor sensuality. It is not 
in gold, silver, houses and lands. It is not in the govern- 
ments of this world — nor in the "big J" of yourself. It 
comes not from education — nor is it morality — nor honesty — 
nor what the world calls virtue — nor benevolence — nor the 
loftiest reason — nor does it come from justice. It comes 
not from a belief in spiritualism, the attending of circles, 
and the accepting what any medium or trance speaker may 



218 SPIRITUALITY. 

teach. It cannot be imparted by any preaching, praying 
nor sighing. The merits, life, sufferings and death of Jesus 
on the cross cannot impart it to any one. No hearsay or 
reading can make \ >u spiritual. You muct experience and 
feel the truth in yourself, in your ou-n soul. 

Truth is to be truthful and true to the light of conscious- 
ness. But the consciousness not lighted by the fires of 
love is no guide. Intellectual light is not of love — but if 
it unite with love, then is it quickened and made alive by 
the spirit. This illuminates the mind. When truth unites 
with love in the soul there is a generation — a striking out 
as of fire— and a flame is produced. This flame is the com- 
forter and the guide. 

;i Love God " ( " a spirit "-love) " with your whole mind, 
might and strength " — and " worship him in spirit and in 
truth." The love of God is the love of one woman — do you 
know what worship is ? Do you know how — or can you 
enter into the Spirit ? Is worship really the praying, sing- 
ing and preaching we are taught it is ? To enter into the 
Spirit is to be illuminated. We are sunk so low down that 
we know of love only in its lowest phase — and here man 
must commence to climb the ladder to true love. When a 
man truly loves a woman his mind has reached a lofty 
plane of thought — for he loves her soul and spirit, and not 
her form. 

Spirit — God — Love, are synonymous terms, and the spirit 
of an unf alien woman is God — Love. When this love enters 
a man's soul he loves all that are born of woman — Nay! 
More ! he loves all created things, because love hath made 
them all — and they are all lovely when rightly viewed. 

Love, and worship love, in truth then, void of all pre- 
tense, for this is spirituality. No pretense can pass muster 
within yourself. The all-seeing eye is there — and the book 
that contains your life is there — and the judge is there also 



SPIRITUALITY. 219 

who receives no excuses. Worship God in the spirit of love 
and in truth — L e., in the conscious enlightened mind — for 
truth is of the understanding — in which the voice of love is 
heard. 

Those who turn within themselves, and pluck the motes 
out of the mind's eye become reversed or turned around in 
their understanding and very nature, and they see things 
in a reversed light. This turning has already given birth to 
" Christian or Mental Science" — in the practice of which 
the worst diseases are healed; with much thought and 
labor truly — as if God's spirit was far away and needed much 
coaxing to induce it to enter in and heal the sick. Still, a 
wonderful advance has been made — and this class of 
teachers are the advance guard in spirituality. But the 
time comes speedily when diseases of every name and 
nature will be healed by a touch, or a word, by the true 
christian and spiritually inspired man. 

This Metaphysical School teaches that all that exists is 
spirit — that matter is only an appearance of spirit, and has 
no reality in it — that pain and disease are simply a dis- 
ordered mind, and have no existence outside of mind — 
that evil has no existence — L that all is good or God; and 
much more to the same effect, which is just the opposite or 
reverse of our every- day life, understanding and experience. 
I need hardly say that this is true from a lofty standpoint — 
and practically true in its application to the healing of all 
who are receptive of spirit, and who can elevate the under- 
standing. 

"Who so receptive as those who have languished upon beds 
of pain and sickness till hope has well nigh fled? Who so 
ready to embrace the new as those who have exhausted 
the drug stores and the combined wisdom of the old- school 
scientific methods ? 



220 SPIRITUALITY. 

If there is any truth in Christianity, it certainly is in 
healing the sick. This power dwells in spirituality. 

Ho who gazes at the stars loses sight of the earth and 
what it contains. So it is with one who persistently turns 
his mind inward (upward.) He loses sight of his surround- 
ings, and his other senses are absorbed in feelings, and he 
is conscious only of sights and sounds born of ecstacy. 
So he who fixes his thought upon the realm of spirit, loses 
himself in spirit, and he becomes charged with greatness 
and power altogether different from his nature. His mind 
becomes cognizant of other than mundane laws ; his memory 
is suspended, and he is no longer weak, because he has lest 
sight of himself — he is nc longer under the law of disease 
for he has forgotten the laws of heredity — he is no longer 
a sinner for what he has been led to do in his blindness he 
recognizes has been done for his good, and he is thankful 
for all things. Piercing through the gloom and the shadow 
of mundane things he senses the great good God who orders 
all things well; and in his soul he cries out "Not my will, 
Father ! but thine be done ! " He can behold nothing but 
Loveliness and beauty everywhere — and oft in his contem- 
plation is rendered unfit for the stern struggle of this 
demoniac mammon worshipping world. 

" He that putteth his hand to the plow, and looketh back 
is not worthy of the kingdom of heaven. -J " The kingdom 
of heaven is within ycu." Many imagine that because 
they are worn out and disgusted with everything of a 
sexual nature that they are spiritually minded — not so, my 
friends! The spiritual love all things, and recognize that 
Infinite incomprehensible wisdom has made nothing in 
vain or unlovely. Infinite charity and mercy has found a 
lodgment in their hearts, and they condemn nothing. 
Man is only half a man without a woman to love, and the 
same applies to a woman, "Woe to him or her whose love 



SPIRITUALITY. 221 

has turned to disgust ! Better " turn to the Lord " quickly. 
"As a man thinketh so is he." "He that is born of Gor> 
(Love) doth not commit sin," etc., (John) so love must be 
the way out of sin — the strait and narrow way leading to sal- 
vation — salvation from what ? From our own meanness 
and weakness ! 

Love being a spirit, if a man lose his love, he loses his 
spirit. Can he regain it ? Not easily. Such go out of life 
naked and deformed — to be re-incarnated as other beings — 
but he that becomes spiritual, becomes more and more con- 
scious, as the love gestates within him, and in time is born 
of the spirit, a son of God. 

The spirit is that which gathers around the soul at death 
to form another body like unto the one that died "What, 
if you have little or no spirit to form a divine body 
of f You become a phantom- shape — lost in space, without 
home or a resting place — drawn here and there by any 
breath of attraction — to become anything. Yampires are 
partly of this nature. Spirituality is our only hope — the 
only salvation. Christ taught this. " Not every one that 
saith Lord, Lord! shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but 
he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." 
God's will is that we " love one another." Owe no man 
anything — not even love — pay it. The mind filled with 
love becomes light with spirit — and gradually loses the 
feeling of mine and thine — there is no feeling of blame 
and censure of others, but it rather weeps great tears of pity 
and charity over failures. 

There is no turning back of the mind into memory of 
past deeds — the stirring up of the rotting filth of the corpse 
of the past — thus bringing it along with the spirit, living it 
over and over again, forcing the dead to become the living 
---or to become the atoms of the body to its disease and 
death. In this forgetfulness of the past is forgiveness 



___ SPIRITUALITY. 

■-Hue. Heredity cannot exist save as memory holds it in 
Lsciousness. It is a wise provision that death wipes 
q pasl so far as memory is concerned. Some would 
like to know what they have been in previous existences; 
but this knowledge is wisely withheld. In our now un- 
balanced state insanity would be the result of such knowl- 
edge. 

Who are the unhappy ? Those who brood over the past, 
and are always thinking how " it might have been !" Who 
is it that is morose and sour but those who recognize no 
wise providence at the helm of this ship of life ? These are 
the sick ones. Spirituality gives hope and cheerfulness — 
even in the most adverse circumstances. In proportion as 
the past recedes does the future unfold, and an intuitive 
feeling of rest, security and safety takes the place of 
anxiety and uncertainty. This can only come from the 
love of some one of the opposite sex. The reason is very 
simple. In the love of another, self-love has expanded, and 
self is forgotten in the love of a "better half." True love 
is not a selfish love, and really the love of another of the 
opposite sex is not a love of something foreign to yourself, 
but it is a love of a larger and better self. Such lose 
themselves in the one loved. He that does good for the 
sake of attaining Nirwana — will fall far short of it. Why ? 
Because his love is only self-love — and not a love of the 
good — for the good is all. " He that would lose his life 
for my sake shall find it" — means more than many suppose. 
He that ]oses himself in love shall find himself immortal in 
that love. 

The first command is " love God." Why must this be 
first ? If the love of your neighbor is in reality the love 
of God, the first is altogether superfluous, and the love of 
your neighbor becomes first and principal. The fact is the 



SPIRITUALITY. 223 

two loves are different; and here lies the true definition of 
Spirituality. 

" God is a Spirit" — then he is not a personality — but is 
a formless substance; and absolutely incomprehensible to 
us. Having no form He has no beauty to lure man into 
worship ! for we all love and reverence beauty. Having no 
form, how vain the making of images, in the likeness of 
mundane things, to represent Him. Having no form, how 
childish do all forms and ceremonies appear in his service ! 
Having no form, he has no attributes, such as we have, 
wherewith we may clothe a mental image of Him, to love 
and reverence! Forms are eternally changing— but that 
which is formless changes not. We are so constituted that 
we must see something — either in the mind or with physical 
eyes — in order to love. The mind sees attributes — the eye 
sees forms — and John saw the attribute love in his mind, 
which he called God — but Jesus saw a spirit which ho 
clothed to suit the natural mind, with the attributes of 
Father. But " Gautama 9 ' soared above all human attributes 
and passions ; and stripped creation bare of all garments of 
beauty; in the conception of Indifference. He ignored all 
emotions, and all spirits as an ultimate — hut yet the road 
thereto led through love, "We of the Bosy Cross cling to 
Jesus because of his humanity. We do not wish any spirit- 
uality beyond love — for this is of active, creative use. To 
love God then is the first principle- — this when disconnected 
with human attributes becomes totally impossible. To love 
something foreign to ourselves is repugnant to the very 
nature of love. Now woman is part and parcel of our whole 
nature, and to love her is very natural — but the love ive give 
her is not such as we give our neighbor. In the latter 
there is no leaping of the heart, as a caged bird leaps for 
freedom — no exaltation to total forgetfulness of self, and all 
surroundings, and consequences-— no disconnection of self 






SPIRITUALITY, 



from reason and consideration — no blending and interchange 
of our most inner sensibilities— no ecstatic trembling upon 
the very confines of a blissful state we call heaven: — 
but on the contrary, in our love for our neighbor we become 
more considerate, reasonable and thoughtful of consequences ; 
not impulsive, but deliberate in action — "to do as we 
would be done by." In fact to "love your neighbor as 
yourself," is to become more truly human; while to love 
your wife with "your whole mind, might and strength," is to 
become totally absorbed in her being, and to lose yourself 
in a contemplation that speedily destroys all selfish passions 
and desires — not because she is yours do you love her, but 
because she is woman — your best nature — and nearer to love 
(or God) than you are. So out of the dark abysses of pas- 
sion — out of the loathsome crypts of this fallen nature does 
spirituality take its rise. That form of beauty which 
pleases your eyes, leads only downward or outward to the 
losing of your spirit in things foreign to yourself; — but 
mental images, or ideal attributes of woman, change as the 
spirit becomes luminous; hence there is no idolatry in this 
worship — nor adultery either. The Hebrew prophets 
always referred to the worship of false Gods as " whoring 
after other Gods." Why should they apply this term 
to worship if sex is not involved. See Psalms cxxvii, 3, 
Deut. xxiii, 1, Num. xxxi, 18-35, I Sam. ii, 22, Gen. vi, 2. 
"Whence came the Jewish rite of circumcision ? The 
ancient religions were all based in the love nature. Jesus 
inculcated the same ideas evidently, and made a sweeping 
and broad distinction between true and false worship. " But 
I say unto you, that whoso looketh upon a woman to lust 
after her hath committed adultery already in his heart." 
The false is the visual — true worship is in spirit and in truth 
— within the mind — without lust — formless. The mind truly 



SPIKITUALITY. 



225 



illuminated by spirit, has no forms in it, either of beauty 
or deformity ; for it is vacant of thought 

Consequently there can be no judgment of right and 
wrong, of good and evil, and no censure of others in k the 
truly spiritual. Spirituality then takes its rise from a con- 
templation — or worship — of the formless principle of 
creation as symbolized in the feminine spirit of ourselves. 
The spiritual cannot do a wrong to another, because it is 
not aggressive nor selfish. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

"EOSICKUCkE." 

Reference has been made in the preceding pages to the 
Rosicrucians; and the work in the main is claimed to be an 
embodiment of their principles : not all bodied forth, how- 
ever, by any one sect, class, clime or era; and it is well, in 
closing, to anticipate the query as to who, what and where 
are the Rosicrucians? That will naturally arise in the 
minds of most people, because there is so little known of 
them. 

The Rosicrucians may more properly be termed a frater- 
nity than an order; albeit many attempts have been made 
in modern times to materialize it as an order, some of 
which are a success, though of necessity veiled in profound 
secrecy. The Rosicrucians are numerous — of all nationali- 
ties and all climes; but they are scattered. They meet 
occasionally — not drawn together by " press notices " or the 
ringing of bells, but by the moving and drawing of the 
spirit — as " of one accord." 

They were known in history among the other appellations 
as the Essenes, the Illuminati, etc., but since Christian 
Rosencrutz's time, as the Rosicrucians. It was evidently 
once the universal religion — long ere written history began; 
for evidences of " Fire -worship " are scattered over all 
the earth in the form of Rosicrucian symbols. 

The curious reader is referred to Hargrave Jennings' 
great work, entitled " The Rosicrucians," published in Eng- 
land. There was a time when all learned men believed in 
magic, (another term for magnetism), and those who studied 
the occult forces of nature, and practiced the powers derived 
therefrom, were styled priests, and later, magicians ; but 



ROSICRUCL^. 227 

after the destruction of the Magi of Persia, and during the 
rise of Catholicism, magic became associated with the idea 
of diabolism, and was styled " Black Art, " and all who 
practiced it were shunned, and sometimes hunted to 
death. 

Wherever God is found among men you will find a spirit 
of investigation into the mysteries of being, and a corres- 
ponding love of freedom ; hence, the true man is free to 
dig deep or take intellectual flights — aye, even to God's 
throne, and there question him face to face. There is 
nothing too sacred or secret for him to question for the 
truth. 

Recognizing the possibility of the great good God, and 
the impossibility of the Devil, they laughed in secret, (for 
they dared not even smile publicly), at priests, bishops, 
cardinals and popes, and treasured the ancient lore in 
cypher, and worshipped the undying, unquenchable fire, 
while they dwelt in caves, or fled before the terrors of the 
inquisition. This revived the ancient Pagan secret societies 
and mysteries. 

To learn and know something more than ordinary is 
dangerous when such knowledge is unpopular, or at least, 
when the masses are ruled by ignorance and superstition. 
It was at the cost of life to be known as a member of such 
secret orders — hence arose the proverbial secrecy of the 
brethren of the Rosy Cross. Time was when no man would 
admit that he belonged to that mystic fraternity ; further- 
more, they shrouded themselves in a cloud of mysteries — 
not, perhaps, with a view of mystifying others so much as 
from the idea that all power is a mystery, and that " God's 
ways are mysterious and past finding out," and they wish 
to be God-like. Furthermore, Rosicrucians have learned 
from past experience, that popularity is a dangerous thing ; 
upon this rock all religious systems have foundered. The 



228 ROSICRUCIJE. 

Magi of Egypt, Arabia, Persia and Assyria, in ancient 
times were the ruling class — they were the priesthood and 
ruled the crowned heads, and had charge of the education 
of such as were eligible thereto. They recognized that the 
equality of man was based in his elevation ; and that 
undeveloped man must of necessity be ruled. To such as 
are not capable of self-government, education is an evil. 
They knew as we know to-day that the only true education 
is of the heart. To attain this end they established religious 
systems, and the common people were taught as children 
are taught — with stories or fables ; while the priests kept 
for their own use ideas altogether different. Their ideas 
expressed as allegories entered into — and became the 
foundation of quite all the religious systems of the civilized 
world. From the ancients came all the symbolism of the 
world. It is woven into art, customs, literature and science, 
as well as religious systems. Our Bible is full of Rosicru- 
cian lore — not however known under that name at that, 
or any other time. For Rosicrucise has little respect for 
names. While at all times leading the world, it assumes 
names to suit circumstances, and of itself is hidden and not 
known. Why ? Because it is a spiritual organization (if 
it can be called such) and works wholly in spirit. Its 
methods are not the world's methods. We worship fire — 
but this fire is not material fire. Says one of the Bible 
Prophets — "Our God is a consuming fire." All thrones 
and crowns grow out of popularity. And now the masses 
have turned upon them, and their days are numbered. 
Where are the ancient Magi ? Gone with the grandeur of 
the countries wherein they flourished ! The very circum- 
stances they created overwhelmed them and they have sunk 
to rise no more. The fate of all nations and religions is 
the same — still the Rosy Cross principles remain and keep 
along with the people ; unseen but not unfelt. 



ROSICKUCIiE. 229 

Another reason for secrecy is this : The most potent 
forces of nature are silent and secret. They manifest them- 
selves openly at times ? but are mainly hidden. Behold the 
earthquake and the cyclone ! Think you there is no power 
in silence ? 

Rosicrucise is intensely and transcendentally spiritual — 
hence, it has nothing in common with materialism, except 
intellectually, and even then the conclusions of materialism 
are all reversed. It has no affinity with this mammon- 
worshipping age — hence, it has no golden basis or " insur- 
ance plan " to lure men into a semblance of brotherly love 
and fellowship. Unobtrusive, unpretending men, they 
pass mainly unnoticed through life; they look with pity 
upon a world of gold and treasure-gatherers as upon children 
heaping dirt in the streets. No wonder such men are not 
understood ; they are in the world, but they feel they are 
not of it, and they wish to get done with it as quietly as 
possible. Knowing they can leave it only by doing good, 
they are always secretly doing all within their power. 
Indeed, they are conscious of having been sent here for that 
purpose — to help the world in its efforts to humanize the 
race. 

The Alchemists of the middle ages believed in the 
" Elixir or Life and the Philosopher's Stone," and dili- 
gently sought for them. To drink of the former was eternal 
youth and life ; the latter was sought as a universal solvent, 
in the use of which the baser metals were changed or trans- 
muted into pure, virgin gold. No wonder these men were 
called insane; but, nevertheless, they gave the world the 
principles of chemistry and medicine. 

Think you such men were fools ? Nay ! but they had an 
idea which the masses could not comprehend, and they 
masked it in material that they could grasp. No philoso- 
pher ever supposed for a moment that matter in any form 



230 ROSIORUGLffi. 

could confer immortality upon any other form whatever, for 
there is no changeless substance in existence. That there 
is a power in the human soul capable of eternally renewing 
youth and beauty is a cardinal doctrine of the Rosy Cross. 

As to the transmutation of metals, it is not only possible, 
but true. The idea is of kin to the first ; (they constitute 
11 the Secret'' of the order;) and has already been explained 
as transmutation of spirits into forms of matter; such as 
cloth, flowers, bread, wine, or any metal. The Rosicrucian 
concealed the real idea of transmutation under the title of 
transmutation of metals or the changing of one form into 
another. Many alchemists tried to reduce the spiritual gift 
of creation into a material science; and it is said some few 
succeeded so far as they were individually concerned; but to 
the true Rosicrucian the latter is of no value whatever, 
further than as used in the middle ages as an excuse to stop 
too close espionage, and to compel not only the respect of 
common people, but the patronage and protection of those 
in authority ; for the practice of alchemy, or dealing even, 
with his " Satanic Majesty" for the purpose of enriching 
the earth with gold, would be deemed a laudable avocation. 
They, at least, found protection in it, although prizing it 
not — for the true adept has all he needs of all things with- 
out resorting to any such resource, for he needs but little. 

There is a providence for every man and woman who 
stands high enough in the scale of being to be conscious of 
it, and to be its recipients. The ravens fed the prophet 
Elijah in the olden time. 

Not every man can be an adept in anything, for this 
capability is born in a man as genius is. Neither is it pos- 
sible for every man to be a Rosicrucian, no more than edu- 
cation can impart sense ; or no more than a child born blind 
could be made a master artist by learning the terms used to 
designate the philosophy of light and shade and blending 



ROSICRUCTJS. 231 

of colors. There must be an innate feeling of rapture at the 
bare idea of mystery; a hunger and thirst for the unknown, 
and a conscious and abiding belief in one's own immortality. 

Such are initiated with profit to themselves and mankind; 
for in Rosicrucia's Temple they eat and are filled, and drink 
to thirst no more. Here they find teachers and brothers. 
We are the children of "the Shadow," and we love it, 
though oft we may not see the way clearly through tear- 
dimmed eyes, yet we cry out in our anguish, " Not my will, 
Father, but thine be done!" And then u the Shadow" 
reveals its mystery and departs, leaving the heart chastened 
and lightened with increased purity and peace. 

We are cast down in order that we may go higher. Thus, 
alternately cast down and exalted, we are prepared to meet 
all the changes of this mundane life. No stoic, agnostic, nor 
egotist can be a Rosicrucian: it requires feeling, and that in- 
tensified. Without this, no initiation could possibly impart 
that baptism of the spirit which gives birth to new or dor- 
mant energies ; or awaken soul germs of a higher and better 
life, where will reigns over all, and matter becomes trans- 
mutable. 

Who are Eosicrucians ? I may not answer this question! 
" By their fruits shall ye know them." No better test, or 
one more unerring or unmistakable could be given than 
that given by our Master, " the man of Sorrows" whom they 
hanged on a cross long ago. Let others speak for them- 
selves ! There is nothing in Eosicrucise to be ashamed of, 
and I glory in being one, though an humble builder of the 
Temple in these degenerate times. And if I speak of my- 
self in this connection it is because I am free to do so — 
while I may not mention others. It has been my lot to be 
a teacher most of my life. I write and speak to aid others, 
not for pay in coin, or in popularity. Unfortunately, how- 
ever, some fail to grasp ideas in their fullness, and carried 



232 BOSIOBUOIiE. 

away by enthusiasm, rush into occult studies and practices 
expecting immediate results. This is wrong. There must 
be a certain growth and ripening ere fruits can be expected. 
Some seem to think, that if they can find a lodge of 
Rosicrucise and be initiated that they will come out with a 
diploma, and become at once a full-fledged Bosicrucian. 
Initiation is something more than taking an oath and going 
through certain forms and ceremonies — no matter how im- 
posing or awe inspiring. It is something more than a course 
of lectures and study of authorities. It is something deeper 
and higher than intellectual culture. It is the knowing of 
truth. To know is something higher than learning — it in- 
volves mind, soul and body. Ah, what a work is this ! A 
life is far too short for some to attain the goal of knowledge. 
It is said that Pythagoras spent twenty-two years among 
the mystics of Egypt, in his initiation. Mind, however 
deep and subtle, cannot bear immortal fruit. It takes the 
entire man — soul, mind and body ! The Bosicrucians think 
very little of the ways of the world — its pride, arrogance 
and dignity — he is simple, for he finds truth is very simple. 
The fruits of truth are free from pretense. But unfor- 
tunately there are many pretenders — but " by their fruits 
shall ye know them." 

But fruits are not always confined to acts. They are 
visible to the acute sense, even in the embryo — in the thought 
and in the spirit, as fruit may be known in a tree by its 
buds. I meet many Bosicrucians, and although total 
strangers, we know each other at sight. The true artist has 
a feeling ivhich transcends his thought in viewing works of 
art It is his best and safest guide to a just and true esti- 
mate of what he beholds. 

God fashions all things and paints them in all colors 
possible. There is nothing in existence that is not of kin 
to intelligence. They are all suggestive of thought — nay ! 



kosicruci^:. 233 

they are thoughts materialized. And He has fashioned 
men with thought-reservoirs, as a flower, for receiving the 
polen and the dew; and the Rosicrucian may be known by 
the stamp that God has put upon him, whether he is con- 
scious of it or not. 

Pre- existence is a cardinal principle of the Rosy Cross, 
and men who have existed on this earth previous to this 
existence, as men, have forms, expression and motion more 
suggestive of peace, rest and harmony than those who have 
only just commenced life on this planet. The former have 
more receptiveness, prescience, and intuition; for they have 
not wholly forgotten the lessons learned in other bodies ; 
neither have they entirely forgotten the friends and com- 
panions of that other life; and when they meet they feel a 
mutual attraction and friendship for each other — a kindred 
feeling, more real than that of the blood. 

During my studies of nature, and my travels as a lecturer 
and practitioner of phrenology and kindred sciences, I have 
met with many men, and many strange — and, I might say, 
weird— experiences I have looked into eyes of all shades 
of color that contained nothing, but which reflected all the 
phenomenon of the outer world. Other eyes I have met 
that looked deep — as into a world of causation, without 
limit — as looking into an eternal past, and out of which 
rise up shadows, not dark or many colored, but fiery, as it 
were, or of a burning, melting tenderness. Such shadows 
are portents of power. Of such are Eosicrucians. Many 
such have I taught the true principles of human life and 
action, and sent them on their way rejoicing. Many a false 
step have I arrested, and infused hope into the minds of 
the desperate — aye ! and turned the would-be suicide into 
the ways of love, labor and usefulness. The evil is always 
too apparent in the young: the good is mainly hidden. To 
find the truly good in the soul, and display it to the con- 



23 1 ROSICBUCLE. 

sciousness, is to make it loved and followed as a beacon of 
life. The will needs an incentive, high and noble, in order 
to its growth; and no matter how lofty one's own ideal of 
himself and his powers may be, to lindthem recognized by an- 
other, and that other a stranger, is like doubling the powers to 
its attainment. Alas! how many of mature years are in 
doubt and condemnation of themselves, because they are 
not, and never have been, understood, i. e., the best part 
of themselves. "We long to have the good of ourselves 
understood, and not the evil. And herein, in the knowing 
the good in ourselves lies the whole secret of life, health 
and happiness, both here and hereafter. This idea is the 
basic floor of " Mental Science healing," and as I said — I 
reiterate — this is the leading school, this day, in philosophy — 
in which the religion of Christ becomes real and practical. 
"We are slowly turning back to the time when man had 
more faith in the Gods than in physical substances, and 
diseases were prevented and cured by the use of talismans, 
incantations, invocations, words, thoughts, spells, charms, 
etc., all of which were mere forms of expression for that 
spiritual power of which I have spoken, having an effect 
upon the mind primarily, and secondarily upon the body. 
But man's spiritual nature has gradually become more and 
more dense, or physical, and instead of carrying or wearing 
talismans, charms, etc., as a protection or cure, people now 
invoke the doctors instead of the gods, and swallow their 
amulets whole at a gulp ; and yet people die now as then, 
or as when Moses set up the brazen serpent in the wilderness. 
Gautama said that the most fatal diseases enter through 
the eye ; and we of the Rosy Cross know this is true in a 
sense ; for through the eye the imagination (in most men) 
is fed, and the passions may be aroused to the commission 
of acts unhallowed and unnatural. By reason of which the 
soul is tainted with moral poison, which in the blood pro- 



ROSICRTJCIiE. 235 

duces venereal infections, hereditary and deadly — the 
foundation of all known diseases. 

If disease enters ever, or in any form whatever, througn 
the eye, it cannot be removed by agents which act upon 
the physical or chemical organization only, for the reason, 
it being of a spiritual or psychical origin, it enters directly 
into and deranges the harmonious action of the mind, 
which holds supreme control over the physical. To cure 
these phases of disease the remedies applied must be of a 
character that will influence directly the subtle, spiritual 
forces of the individual, and through them produce vital and 
chemical changes in the physical structure. 

But disease does not enter in any manner from without. 
That which is external simply wakens up that which is al- 
ready in us. Disease is not a thing — it is simply a depolar- 
izing of the self. That sights and sounds lure the imagina- 
tion into activity, I claim, and in this faculty of mind de- 
polarization of the spirit's action takes place, which causes a 
sudden condensation of spirit in some parts of the system, 
to the damage of other parts left destitute. Thus the 
system is all thrown out of harmony, because the normal 
action of the spirit is disturbed. 

Now, belief being the fundamental principle of power — 
and man being more physical than mental, his belief is 
more readily aroused and sustained by physical substances 
than by ideas — hence the Magi used charms, amulets, and 
talismans, to inspire the belief of the ignorant and material. 
Furthermore: who can doubt for a moment that dru^s, 
nietals, vegetable substances, etc, have a peculiar affinity 
for certain spirits or an antipathy for others ? Who knows 
why Dr. Hotchkiss had his room hung round and round with 
rags of all shades of color except blue ? Were these things 
talismans calling and binding magnetic spirits to himself, 
thus strengthening him in the cure of diseases, and in the 



ROSICRUCLE. 

retaining of his youthful vigor and prolonging his life ? 
Why Jul ho fall into a towering rage, and lose his magnetic 
power, if one came dressed in blue into his room ? Why 
did he iill his collar with such a dense smoke — so -thick that 
no one but himself could endure it upon certain occasions? 
Don't toll mo there is no truth in magic, for I know better. 
Still I care not who doubts it. The higher magic set forth 
in those pages is for the use of a higher order of mankind 
than this world is much acquainted with. Sakyi Mouxi 
knew of these powers and attained thereto. The sick either 
recovered or died ininiediately, in a certain radius on 
either side of the road along which he passed. And that 
without even a thought of his. When scholars came to 
converse with him, those who received his word with joy, be- 
came endowed with power: but the skeptical, and self-suffi- 
cient, who argued with him and disputed, swelled up with 
their own importance and burst asunder, dying in his pres- 
ence. So says the sacred Bible of the Buddhists. Appoloxius 
of Tyane was another who possessed magic power. He lived 
at the time of Jesus, and according to heathen history per- 
formed as many miraculous cures as Jesus did. He lived 
mainly in the desert— preached and healed the sick by a 
word or a touch, and was clairvoyant. Of Christ I have 
already said enough. He was simply God incarnate. He 
gave us the purest doctrines of a true life, and taught the 
superiority of man over the realm of disease and death — a 
true immortality on earth. He not only taught it by pre- 
cept, but he lived it; and died to illustrate and prove what 
he had taught, viz : the power to render matter imperishable. 
Gautama, Appoloxius, Plato, Pythagoras, and a host of 
others, taught pre- existence and a future life, but none but 
Jesus taught and demonstrated immortality in the flesh. He 
was the only begotten son of God, or Love — not that there are 
not other sons of God, but he is the only one begotten of a 



ROSXCRUCOE. 237 

woman. Buddha says that a man strong spiritually 5 can 
impregnate a very sensitive and pure woman by the man- 
ipulation of his hand over the umbilicus This, by the 
greatest sage, and philosopher of any time, must have 
weight with every true thinking man; especially when 
corroborated by modern developments. If his assertion be 
true ; and one in the form can by magnetic touch produce 
pregnancy without copulation, how much less wonderful 
the idea contained in the New Testament, of " the immacu- 
late conception," becomes! An angel, by his presence, 
without even contact — by a word spoken, quickens the pro- 
creative powers of. a virgin! An idea — no matter how sug- 
gestive, is all that is required. These bodies are mere 
receptacles of spirit; and well it is for us, when the spirit 
flowing into us is divine, instead of devilish. Modern 
materializations; the overflowing of hospitals with the in- 
sane; the obsessions that stalk the streets of the world 
unseen, and seen, prove the above to be true. Ideas are all 
that can do us good, or be of any harm spiritually; for they 
enter in, being conceived, gestate and personify themselves 
within us. In this domain the procreative functions are 
involved; and ideas of love become paramount. 

Human love is a magnetic effect, but the why and the 
wherefore has never yet been satisfactorily explained. But 
it is simple enough to one of comprehension. All things 
are male and female, and the sex that distinguishes the in- 
dividual is the active, or visible expression — while the 
negative or invisible half is mainly latent — or manifests 
itself ideally. Thus every one of any sensibility has an ideal 
of one of the opposite sex that they imagine suits them ; and 
when they see one v/ho corresponds thereto, they are 
attracted. We love only that which corresponds to some 
invisible and unknown being within ourselves. And they 
in whom this Ideal is well defined, and strong, seldom or 



238 [OKuciis. 

never love a second time. Some people are double — /. e., 
under some circumstances the ideal goes forth clothed in 
fl< sh exactly like the person — who is partly or -wholly un- 
conscious at the time. Magnetism quickens and acceler- 
- the development of this counterpart. This explains 
why some people are more susceptible to magnetism than 
others — and explains to a certain extent trance mediumship 
— and the resemblance that has been noticed sometimes 
between a medium and a materialized form. In marriage 
the parties too often awaken to the realization that there is 
little or no correspondence between the wedded parties and 
their ideal — this makes them unhappy and often checks the 
growth of the ideal, or in some cases drives it totally out of 
recognition. They cease to magnetize each other — hence 
they cease to love. This is prostitution, in which there is 
no ideal, and no worship of the one true and only God. 
This ideal in some rare cases comes to life in the individual, 
L e., comes so close to the consciousness of the individual as 
to be heard to speak in plain language within the person — 
of course unheard by outsiders. Not only this — but the 
time comes speedily when from many the counterpart shall 
come forth an objective being, as Eve came forth from the 
side of Adam. Eecollect, Adam was in a deep sleep when 
the rib was extracted. In other words he was an extraordi- 
nary materializing medium — and Mary, the mother of Jesus, 
was another, more remarkable still. 

I am not without evidence of these things^ in actual ex- 
istence, even now, in this degenerate and unbelieving age. 
If marriage was as it should be, and will be, we should 
have angels walking this earth. AVe believe in angels ! 
Then, cultivate your ideal love. Love only one of the 
opposite sex, and then let your soul, mind and body rest. 
Keep before your mind ? s eye the radiant image that crossed 
your path, and lured you to marriage, in life's young 



R0SICRUCL2E. 239 

dream 1 — And let no changes, nor wrinkles, ncr gray hairs, 
glide between your youthful counterpart and you, on life's 
rough voyage. So may you remain young, and full of love 
and joy. 

We do not have to depend upon churches and lodges 
for initiation into the grandest mysteries of God; for 
the heavens are open — and in the spaces above are countless 
multitudes, that with thought, and act, are baptizing earth 
with all you are capable of receiving. Then arise in your 
thought and meet them. "We, of the Rosy Ceoss, believe 
in " the double,' 9 in dreams and visions. We hold that the 
soul goes out of the body, sometimes in sleep or trance, or 
in very rare cases, by an effort of the will. That when out 
it is enveloped by the spirit, of which it sometimes forms 
an exact counterpart of the body it has left, and journeys 
to other worlds, or other parts of this one; mingles and 
holds converse with other beings when it is enlightened 
in many ways — and often the future is shown to it in 
symbols. But these things are mainly lost when the soul 
resumes its body, or remembered vaguely as dreams. Some- 
times some little thing will recall something learned in this 
manner, and we are astonished at what we suppose is our 
own thoughts. Many persons are instructed in this manner. 
One such experience has left its stamp upon me. At the 
risk of being called garrulous I will relate it. 

Many years ago I had become somewhat soured at the 
rough treatment I had received from the patterns of relig- 
ion and morality, and I determined to let the dead world 
bury its dead, or in other words, I did not think I "amounted 
to anything, anyway," and that I would not try to teach 
any one anything at all any more. So I quietly went 
about making daily bread for those dependent upon me. 
But one night in a deep sleep I was in an immense amphi- 
theatre. I stood in the little space in the center, where 



2 1 ROSICRUCIJE. 

were a few chairs with people seated in them, from this space 
Beats ascended in circles around me, tier above tier, hio-h 
up towards the dome-like ceiling. These seats were liter- 
ally crowded with people. I was speaking to them, and 
they were very attentive, though I have no idea of the sub- 
ject I was speaking upon, but I know I was very earnest 
and wished the audience to believe something — and I 
recollect saying, "Now all you want to convince you of this 
truth is the evidence!" As I said this a shock and cold 
wave poured over me and I raised my hands above my 
head and shouted, " Behold the evidence!" And as I held 
my hands aloft outstretched, there came "the stigmata" in 
the palms thereof, out of which blood oozed slowly and 
dropped on the floor. The audience sat fixed and spell- 
bound for a few moments, then broke forth such shrieks, 
groans, and cries of "Mercy! Mercy! Oh God, have mercy 
on us!" Some fell down, others rose up — and such a scene! 
I cannot describe it. But I stood there a minute, then said, 
" let us thank God for this evidence!" and dropped on my 
knees, and the whole audience prostrated themselves with 
me. This was an experience — it was no dream. I was at 
a loss for the meaning of it. But then came a series of 
events, commonplace and trifling of themselves, which have 
assumed great magnitude in my life, forcing me from se- 
clusion and silence. It remains to be seen whether I 
have the audience or not — or whether I give the evidence 
or not. Blessed are they who believe from beholding " The 
Stigmata!" but thrice blessed is he who believes from feel- 
ing it in his own person. 

For you, Header, 

Lovingly "Written, 

F. B. Dowd. 
Hempstead, Texas. 




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